Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Bait and switch Joph. I was talking about forming communities.
Really? I was talking about laying down the roads connecting and existing within those communities.
I wasn't aware that simply running an interstate highway through an area counted as "encouraging" the building of a community there. Wow! There should be suburbs everywhere then, what with the government encouraging everyone to build communities all along those stretches of highway!
Er. No. There aren't, are there?
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But I can see why you'd be frantic to move the goalposts.
Pot to Kettle, right? You're funny when you backpedal.
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You don't agree that by increasing the number and size of roadways, the government will encourage private car ownership and use, and that this will decrease the reliance of the population on mass transit to get from place to place? You don't agree that this will cause communities to form into looser forms where most of the places you need to get to are easily accessed by car but not by walking or bus/light rail?
If we restrict ourselves to major highways? Absolutely not. There's no reason why connecting highways between towns would impact the makeup of the towns themselves, and certainly not the building layout, building types, inter-city transportation methodologies, or any of the things we normally use to differentiate an urban versus suburban environment.
I was responding to a statement that populations tend to be more dense in Europe, thus reducing the need to own a car. That's not about whether there's a highway or rail line connecting your town to the next one. That's about how close most people are to the places they go most of the time. Those are two completely different aspects to this issue and you know it. Or at least you should know it.
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And you don't agree that this has obvious social engineering aspects? Really? Seems like those conservative blinders are on nice and tight.
Show me were tax dollars are being collected from the densely packed urban communities to pay for the roadways and infrastructure in the suburbs, and you'll have a point.
Oh wait! You don't. Because the money flow goes the other way around.