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

[Hal Taussig]

I would love a little play-back on Untours' effort to use public 
transportation (mostly rail) rather than cars. You may remember, my reason 
for exploring Denmark is because Copenhagen's effort to keep automobiles 
from dominating the city are the  most successful in the world.We will want 
to consider using buses and trains in our new Greece Untour--mostly simply 
relying on buses scheduled for public  transportation. Of course we 
Americans value convenience highly, and, in this context, I mean that we 
want to leave and return exactly at the time when our whims dictate. And 
that is part of our strong sense of individualism, or put differently, our 
lack of motivation to build strong communities.
At 11:45 AM 9/5/03 -0400, WesTexas@aol.com wrote:
>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
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