[Culturechat] Check out "As Suburbs Grow, So Do Waistlines" & U.S. Car Culture

[WesTexas@aol.com]

Good article about the negative effects of American suburbs:

Click Here: <A 
HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/04/garden/04REPO.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5059&en=a181e504f9a57425&ex=1063339200&partner=AOL">As Suburbs 
Grow, So Do Waistlines</A>

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/04/garden/04REPO.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5059&en=a
181e504f9a57425&ex=1063339200&partner=AOL

Some interesting numbers regarding America's love affair with the car:

According to federal government, total vehicle-miles in 1990:  1.4 trillion 
vehicle-miles (one vehicle-mile is one car traveling one mile).     In 2000:  
2.8 trillion vehicle-miles. (A 100% increase in 10 years).  

There are now more cars than people in the U.S.

According to financial columnist Scott Burns, the total cost (depreciation, 
insurance, maintenance and gasoline) per mile to drive an average new sedan (if 
you trade it after four years) is about 50 cents per mile.  Interestingly 
enough, gasoline is only about 12% of this mileage expense--versus about 22% 
twenty years ago.   Taking into account older cars and assuming an average of 35 
cents per mile for the American car fleet, Americans spent around a trillion 
dollars in 2000 driving their cars.  

I think that wave of the future is going to be something more akin to the New 
York and European model--smaller housing units in urban areas where one can 
walk to many more places and/or use mass transportation.   A lot of the huge 
growth in the suburbs is because of massive direct and indirect federal housing 
subsidies--plus the huge federal investment in the Interstate Highway System.  
 Unfortunately, this  has made the U.S. very energy inefficient.  

J. Brown