Often these days in the transit community we see article after article about how X number of jobs are going to be created.  One of the quotes I’ve seen recently, on LA Metro’s Website for High Speed Rail, states 90,000 jobs created for building the high speed rail (HSR), somehow statewide they theorize 600,000 construction, and 450,000 permanent jobs.  I call bull.

Yes the work will create some jobs.  Some of those will be sustainable ongoing jobs, some will be for a few months.  It might be 90,000 jobs or it most likely would be much less.

However, one thing that is not mentioned is what will happen to all the jobs at the airlines and airport.

Do we really, as a pro-HSR & transit community think that HSR won’t be very disruptive?  When the high speed line between San Francisco to LA, and LA to Orange County and down to San Diego opens, almost every short distance flight within 500 miles will probably disappear.  Why do I say this?  Because it happens over and over and over again when high speed rail, even merely 110mph speed rail service it put into action.  The simple fact is, when a comparable trip can be made by rail people will not get on a airplane.

With that said, and something I just assume will happen, what about the workers in the airline industry?  This goes on the perpetuate the broken window scenario laid out many years ago.  Disruptive and especially destructive changes to the economy are only short term boosts during the repair.  Then the loss actually has to be compensated for and somebody ends up with the short stick.  In this scenario, the high speed rail will be very disruptive, but in the end there will not be a net increase in new jobs.  The airlines will lay off and probably sell or junk most of those short jumper planes.  Meanwhile the high speed passenger rail industry will take in some of those workers, the others will have to go find work elsewhere.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing.  Disruptive technologies, especially like high speed rail, are needed and a great deal in today’s world.  They are cleaner, cheaper over the long term, and provide people a much better traveling experience.  However, this continued bragging and politicking over jobs created is a myth.  Which, in politics simply equates to more lying.

In the end, we end up with no net new jobs from this Government intervention into the market.  It didn’t happen when they where dumping money into the airlines, it won’t happen when they disrupt things to dump money into the high speed rail.  Technically, if they wouldn’t have dumped the money in the first place, the market would have disrupted itself to run higher speed rail in California if the Government had not been dumping billions in to ever competing mode of transport at the time.

The railroads got shafted by the states & Federal Government, and now they’re the Golden Child again.  If the Government wants to have net positive new jobs, that are sustainable and economically feasible, they’re going to have to figure a way to get out of the industry and not be further disruptive in it.  But alas, I know we’re well past those days, but no reason we should accept the lies that the Government through infrastructure spending will somehow save our economy and create new jobs.

It has happened elsewhere, and even here in the US before, don’t fall for it.

Sarah just seems to be on a rampage, rightfully so, putting certain Oregon idiocies to rest.  One of those things is the absolutely absurd fact that Oregon has no homicide type laws for motorists that haphazardly kill people with their cars.  I find this unsettling.  If someone is KILLED by an automobile, or any vehicle for that fact, even out of accidental neglect, that person does NOT need rewarded with a lenient slap on the wrist.  People aren’t even fined for this type of thing, as has been shown in several cases where a motorist has killed a pedestrian, cyclist, or other motorist.  This has to change, but I digress, this isn’t the topic I intended to bring up.

Ms. Mirk has pointed out the almost dead CRC, something I seek the death of.  The dreaded and annoying CRC.  I don’t want the $4 billion dollar bridge to Vancouver under any of the designs I have seen.  It would be a step toward pushing people like me (and there are a LOT of people like me) out of the area.  It would have been a huge step, no wait, a LEAP in the wrong direction that Portland has strived to move in.  The bridge would be a damnation of the efforts the city, and hundreds of thousands of people in Portland and Oregon have worked for, a slash of the wrist, a desecration of so many sorts.

Simply put, the CRC had been and continues to be, albeit on life support, almost dead.

I’m celebrating this at the moment, and my mere actions on a daily basis are my vote, in addition to my political vote against this abhorrent idea.  Thanks Sarah for keeping up with this, keep kicking (verbally of course) at these people that keep fighting against what Portland has worked so diligently for.  Thanks!

So this entry, I write in celebration of the CRC being near death, but also I write it in sadness that the automobile continues to be the death of many individuals at the hands of irresponsible and unaccountable people.  People wouldn’t dare hold people waving around shooting guns haphazardly into the air and irresponsibly killing people to such low punishments, why do we let people with vastly more dangerous 3000+ lbs cars do so?

Anyway, I hope to see this car penalty remedied one day as I look forward to the death of the CRC.  September 1st, 2010 is a date to watch.

In other news, everybody have a happy turkey day!!!  : ) 

So here’s the lowdown.  We’ll all meet at 5:00pm, and discuss transit topics from then until whenever.  I figure we’ll probably go until at least 8:00pm, so if you want to swing by a little after 5:00pm please do.

Here’s some of the topics that have been brought up for discussion so far.  Of course, anyone can talk about anything they want to, these are just kick starts.

• The New Light Rail Efforts – i.e. The Orange Line (Milwaukee)
• The West Side Express, or WES – i.e. The money bleeder (or maybe someone can convince us it isn’t?)
• The future of TriMet in general – Should it be altered?  Broken apart?
• Advocacy – Groups, plans, ideas, organizing, etc.
• Random topics – generally, we can always just bring up things.

The last topic of debate – where shall the location of the meetup be?  Please weigh in with your thoughts and ideas on location.  Preferably someplace that has some food, and is all ages.

Chad mentioned an area that is available near south waterfront and we could BBQ, BYO Beverages, or do a potluck style.  Chad’s space is available via streetcar & Bus #35.  So that’s one option.

The first thing I saw the morning of Saturday, while waiting for the #9 to arrive was one of the builders of America.  With over 150 years of building America under its belt, one more train rolled by with a double stack cargo container consist.  Union Pacific, silently and ghost like serves the nation without many even knowing they exist.  I couldn't help but wonder, where are the parades and celebrations for these trains? But I do digress, on to the Green Line!

Kicking Off the Green Line

As planned the Green Line kicked off operations yesterday.  I must say it was a bit smoother than the Yellow Line switch over, I'm guessing they've ironed out a bit more of the signals that were operating oddly 2 weeks ago.  So today, Sunday, is now full operations day #1, and tomorrow will be the first day of operations under regular commuter capacity loads.  Yesterday however was probably at the expected 25,000 or so trips taken on the line.

Train #1 – The Politicos Arrive

Our leadership at the FTA, local and otherwise arrived after their Clackamas Town Center kick off earlier.  I guess it was sometime around 10am-ish.  The drum core was playing and the college cheer leading squad was down to cheer as the politicians arrived and proceeded to the speaking platform.

To the left I saw Jason McHuff filming some video of the drum core just before the politicians’ arrival, to the right Jo and Don surveyed the growing crowd.  I stood afar before diving into the Seattle’s Best for a morning coffee.  Sure, it was almost 11am, but I had not had much of the day to wake up yet.

The politicians arrived and started to do their speaking, which led my father, mother, Don, Jo, John, and I to head off for a bit to do something interesting. John ran into one of the "recall Sam Adams" people, and after a minute of hearing the lady’s spiel I butt in to lay down my 2 cents.  We both concurred that the recall effort was mostly grasping at straws, even if successful, vain at best.  In general, if you do or do not support Sam, the effort is a waste of time.  In addition, there is a simple fact to remember, even when they do not intend to, politicians lie.

Back on the events of the day, we continued our trek via streetcar to the Farmer's Market.  There Jo & Don picked up some kicking Pine State Biscuits.  Pops, mother, John, and I wandered around checking out various market items.  We caught a raggy time band jamming away upon our approach to the market.

After about 30 minutes we headed back to see about catching a Green Line Train to Clackamas.

We walked up just as the first politician’s train was departing.  It left at 11:24am instead of the advertised 11:30am.  I stated simply, “I guess we won’t be catching that ride.”  We waited, a Type-4 Yellow Line LRV set arrived and departed.  The next set arrived was a Type-3 & Type-1.  Some of the crew was bummed that we wouldn’t be able to ride one of the new trains.  I figured we’d be able to jump aboard a Type-4 set at some point so it didn’t bother me too much.

We made decent time heading out of town, with no delays initially.  At each stop as we passed through, people were enjoying the various booths, tents, events, and such.  Overall the mood was ecstatic.  John, who is from the DC area, enjoyed the ride out, as did all our other crew.

Don, who is a navy man who lives in the Philippines also enjoyed the trip.  He’s in town waiting on his ship to depart, and Friday night Jo and I had met him at Clackamas Town Center (the Mall).  He had arrived there by travelling from Swan Island on the #72 the length of the entire route.  He was more than chill with riding the bus, having been all over the world, one usually doesn’t have any issue getting around.  He did quip, “it’s nicer riding the train the distance than the bus”.

After a wander about the mall, a small snippet of eats, we all headed back downtown and off to various directions.  Jo & Don headed to Target off of the I-205 Mall Stop, I headed back downtown, John & Father headed up to the airport by riding the #72 and transferring to the Red Line.

Streetcar Press – It’s all about the information.

While on way out to Clackamas TC I just happened to meet Justin H. Wright, Publisher at Streetcar Press.  We had a nice long conversation while en route to Clackamas Town Center.  Check out some of the materials published over at the Streetcar Press Website.  I’ll definitely have to meet up and discuss some other possible materials that I could contribute to in the future.

Max, Jason.  We Three Transit Amigos

On the way back the Green, Yellow, Blue, and Red had all started to clump a bit in the Banfield Corridor.  This caused a 10 minute delay in arrival back downtown.  Thus I arrived 10 minutes late to meet up with Max Campos and Jason McHuff.

We all boarded up on a Green Line departure for Clackamas TC after a tour through the Pioneer Square exhibits.  Pioneer Square was a great show, with all sorts of booths and even a bus on display in the square.  We eventually made it all the way to Clackamas Town Center, wandered around the booths and such for a few minutes, and then headed back north.

We discussed dozens of different topics including why we were into transit in general.  Max also pointed out many of the different points of data acquisition and other things available via TriMet.  Great trip, great conversation, will absolutely have to have a get together again in the future.  Yes, I will get on that immediately.  Still trying to find the time to setup a meet.

While out at Clackamas Town Center stop I grabbed a few shots of the line waiting to board the MAX heading back downtown.

The lines and crowds were impressive.  I have little doubt TriMet met expectations of 25,000 plus trips made on opening day.  I just wonder now if they’ll be able to blow past my estimates made in my ridership estimates entry.

I do suspect that the mall will provide a great anchor for the MAX Green Line, I also have my doubts about it providing a significant rider count.  It is possible though, as this mall is the first real suburban mall connected via MAX besides Pioneer Place Mall.  This mall will really provide evidence that light rail can attract young riders that are the standard suburban mall bunnies (or whatever you would call them).  If the line garners a high rider count of young people to and from the mall it could provide catalyst for even further expansion of light rail to these types of end points.

Along the ride a few shots of the green line trains.  The Type-4 LRV set display the Green Line with the little green light, dots, or whatever you would call that green square.  The traditional Typee 1-3s all show the Green Line with a standard green banner display across the front and sides of the LRVs.

The following shots of the MAX show a Type-4 headed to City Center, a Type-3 (or 2?) heading to Clackamas Town Center, and a Type-4 headed to PSU.

I did notice that when the LRVs get to Clackamas TC the icon on the Type 4’s goes hot pink and then shows PSU as the next destination.  Some of the arrivals however showed City Center as the destination instead of PSU.  I suspect that may have something to do with the particular train going in or out of service.  If so, that really throws a curve ball in for planning a trip, hope that doesn’t mess up riders.

Another great thing at the Clackamas TC is the storm swales.  These provide a beautiful addition to the stop but also a very functional cleansing of the waste water that runs off of the station.  Something that is desperately needed in and around more parking lots.  The amount of poisonous waste that runs off of parking lots is mind boggling and a simple swale does a great job cleaning up most of it.

After riding the Green Light the exitement of a successful line made me eally hope that TriMet sees much higher ridership numbers than my previous write up suggests.  I just can’t logically expect more until the economy really starts to turn around (or heaven forbid the Government actually fixes some real issues:  i.e. Federal Reserve, Monetary System, Market Policies, etc).

The last shot of the trip I’ll leave readers with is a shot of the storm swale that is at Clackamas TC.  With the drain easily visible under the rocks, one can see how the water will flow into and through the most greenery in the landscape.  Those weeds, as they may appear, serve as the workers of the cleansing process.  What little waste actually leaves the transit aspect (LRVs, rail bed, etc) station will flow into here.  The real work of this storm swale will be to clean up the bus and auto waste product.

Commute?

I’m tempted over the next few weeks to catch a few trips out on my old trusty #9 Bus and catch the Green Line into town.  I would of course do my regular transit sleuthing activity of checking out the ridership stats, and doing some general observations on the efficiency, usefulness, or as I always look forward to, my personal productivity while on the route.

Sunday, A Little Bit More

Jason, Max, and I all discussed a lot about transit tracker and the general state of web services offered by TriMet.  These services enable all sorts of devices and applications.  These apps are awesome.  They are all extremely useful for trip planning, I think all of them are open source, and they didn’t cost the taxpayers a direct penny!  With TriMet offering this data I couldn’t help but wonder when the Green Line would show up as an active transit tracker route.  Well this Sunday it showed up, but also the Mall MAX showed up!  I was stunned, as I didn’t realize it would actually be referred to as an individual route, but it does make logical sense that it would.  To the right I have a shot of the MAX Green Line and Mall Shuttle showing up via the PDX Bus iPhone Application.

Now this is Union news I like to hear.  High approval, but acquiesce to the realities of the world.  Fact is, there is less money collected.  One can’t just go to the politicians and say, “hey, raise taxes so we can keep paying our employees”.  The only options are;  a: lay off a bunch of people and maintain pay at threat of reducing fare collection and possibly requiring MORE lay offs in the process or, b: decrease benefits and wages until a time when fares, collections, and other funding returns to their previous levels.

To me, this always seems like an inanely obvious solution, you go with the later.  Simple reason is you don’t want to can people, NOBODY does no matter what the general populations’ opinion of companies is.  Force reductions are at most, a temporary solution to anything in the economic activity of the world, and often times don’t work out in the long run for companies at all.  The most rewarded entities are often those that can keep their workforce, maintain its enthusiasm and moral until heavy workload resumes.

I commend those agencies and ESPECIALLY companies around the country & world that can do this.

So hats off to BART for pulling their act together.  Keep that ridership as high as possible, and don’t give anybody a reason to strike.  Let logic prevail and get the job done.

There is an article here about neglecting buses for light rail service.  Also Al M & Erik Halstead are notorious for their rants in the blogosphere about how TriMet neglects buses in favor of light rail.  But here’s my question.

Imagine tomorrow, that these people proposing this where in charge;  Lew Church, Jason Barbour, Xander Dunlap, Patrick Ryan, Al M, & Erik Halstead.  What would they do?

If we stopped running light rail tomorrow how would we move the people that ride the blue, red, and yellow lines with buses?  If the budget where to stay EXACTLY what it is today – how would TriMet move the same number of people if we started using only buses?  Please, answer that for me would you guys?

In addition to that explain exactly how TriMet is supposed to not cut service, if they don't have the money for the service?  If every executive at TriMet and every single office employee was paid the same as the bus drivers tomorrow that would only fund a couple of frequencies, barely enough to even maintain the lines they have.  In addition to that it would mean we'd lose transit tracker, scheduling would have to be printed and we'd probably lose the TriMet website just to point out a few things.  So when the ridership plummets what is the proposal to fix that?

I guess what I want to see among these people are legitimate fixes.  What are their solutions.  Not the mythical fantasy of "if we'd spent all that money on Bus Rapid Transit" or "if we'd only harness the power of the sun" or other nonsense.  Take a look at the current budget (not the odd $900 million that is presented in the Oregon Line Article, but the real operations budget) and tell me how you'd fix the problems.

Another thing I've noticed is this Transit Riders Union.  They're attacking the cuts also, but I've seen no real solutions.  Not tangible ones that will actually save TriMet the money needed to maintain operations.  If we stopped building light rail and instead put all that money toward bus operations we’d be bankrupt before the end of the year just trying to handle the rush hour volume of passengers that light rail handles.

So really, where are the solutions of decreased service isn't it?

Ok, probably not bike bits.  I'm just going to stick to riding for a while and not saying anything else about bikes for a bit, especially since people that ride bikes don't seem to actually READ my blog before rambling on death threats and such.  But woe is me the ever writing transit user.  So yeah, love blogs, hate taxes, on to new topics.

I have a Green Line MAX Preview ride coming up tomorrow, which should be cool.  I believe the idea is we’ll make the loop around the Portland Mall on one of the new MAX LRVs.  Should rock, I'm looking forward to it.  Also Joleen will be joining me after she rides downtown on her bike (yeah, we ride bikes, did I mention that previously?)

More Bike Comments

So any new readers please note that I'm very pro-bike, so don't get fussy (Argh I couldn’t not comment).  I love cycling, I have since I’ve lived in Mississippi and even after ALL 6 incidents where a motorist has hit me.  All the motorists where at fault btw – just so you know.  Two of those have been here in PDX.  So I know what it is like to be threatened by automobiles.  It's a little different than being annoyed by a cyclists blowing a stop sign.  A cyclist might get killed, but if you're driving your greatest threat is the other vehicles (and yourself) on the road, not the cyclist.

Streetcar Bits

Ok, as expected (by me) the new streetcars will be $3.4 Million EACH!  That’s a FULL MILLION above the price of the original cars that where shipped from the other side of the planet.  We get them in country and they just balloon to $3.4 Million each?  I call foul.  People are a fuss about prospective bike taxes, they need to get a fussing about the price of the streetcars.  I want service, I want frequency, I don’t care that they’re spiffy looking new ones.  I WANT MORE STREETCARS but without the obscene stupid price tag.  Take out the twisty parts, buy some smaller ones, do something.  Sam Adams, Fred, and the rest of you guys come on!  GO PRICE SHOPPING  for some streetcars dammit!  204 where purchased recently by our northern Canadian neighbors who are paying significantly less than we are.  If we piggy backed on that order we could get them for almost a million less per car.  In addition we could probably still get something built HERE in America for vastly less money.  What are you guys doing?  Are you ignoring the price tag on these things and just hoping the streetcars will breed like rabbits or something?  Come on!

Ok, so a lot of people jumped my case for the ad without even thinking it through.  They didn’t think the ad through nor did they realize they where attacking a bicycle advocate.  So I just want to get a few things straight right off the bat for any current and future readers.

1. I don’t support bicycle registration, taxes, or any other nonsense of that sort.  Period.  I’ve already written the politicians involved and they’ve been informed of my opinions as well as other politicians that are directly responsible for the area I actually vote in.  I’ve blogged about this in the past, and have debated such many times and even posted pro-cycling blog entries such as my Bike Dedication & Bike Dedication Part 2.
2. I’m an advocate of closing MORE streets to pedestrian and cycle only traffic.
3. I’m an advocate to enforce, encourage, and perpetuate that automobile users pay vastly larger sums of their road usage so that competing modes; bicycles, buses, light rail, passenger rail, and anything else can actually compete fairly on a cost & right of way basis.  That would be vastly better than the lopsided mis-configured mess the Government has us setup with these days that leaves us; vulnerable to foreign energy, dependent on the dirtiest sources out there (oil/coal/etc), and ill-prepared for future progress of technologies without massive subsidies and the need for Government involvement in said affairs.  NOT cool.
4. I’m also an advocate of using general budget or any other funds to build out bicycle, transit, or other modes to more evenly displace less efficient modes of transport (i.e. cars, etc) in urban environments.  Automobiles have had general budget funds dumped into roadways, often dedicated auto only roadways for decades – almost a century, with barely a few percentage points going to any other mode at all.
5. I’m for laws that hold motorists accountable for actions committed in automobiles as I support laws that do the same for usage of guns, knives, pools, etc.  I name those because combined, they kill fewer children per year than automobiles, yet we have almost no laws governing the irresponsible and excessive use of the automobile on rural, suburban, and especially urban roads.
6. I’m for realistic zoning laws that encourage development based around not bikes, transit, or other modes, but around people.  Only zone based on bikes, transit, etc once the necessity for easy human movement between development is fulfilled.  The last thing to be considered should be the intrusive automobile.  Portland is a great case of well designed (mostly private sector) zoning, human scales, and above all market based human interactions versus Government sponsored walls of Interstate Concrete and mass scale planning (even though some SOWA type environments allude to the continued attempts at Central Planning).
7. If I had my way 100% though, I’d not have a single cent of subsidy in any transportation industry though; cycling, auto, transit, passenger rail, airline, or otherwise.  Subsidies do nothing but unbalance the entire flow and demand, allow society of over utilize and underutilize intelligent lifestyles.  It’s really a mess and should be remedied.  The solution, more manipulation of the population however is an unfortunate characteristic of what the last 50+ years of politics has left us with.

Is all of this stuff logical?  Not always.  But it doesn’t matter, point is, I’d go pretty far to create a more bicycle AND transit friendly HUMAN based environment versus the auto centric dehumanized environment most of this country has oriented itself around.  I moved 2400+ miles (as mentioned before for regular readers) back out here to Portland from other parts of the US.  There was a reason I did this, and it wasn’t because ODOT & WADOT want to build a $4.2 Billion dollar bridge across the Columbia River.  It’s for all the exact opposite of those reasons.

So hopefully that lays out this blog’s vantage point and it isn’t mistaken for an anti-bike blog.  Bicyclists by their mere efforts.  I generally won’t be commenting about bicycling much, but hope some of you keep reading and add to the transit discussions that often takes place here.  Thanks!

…and now, back to our normally scheduled topics on transit.

The new transit mall is in use and it is a beautiful stretch through the city.  Now 3rd and 4th have been returned to their previous use as non-transit streets.  The one major difference though is the quality of the street.  It is now crap.  There are dozens of ruts, ridges, pot holes, fills, cracked cement, black top, and other destroyed sections of the street that where in good shape 2 years ago.  All of this damage is bus specific damage.  My question is, what are the city’s plans to fix this?  Is it budgeted?  Have they even planned for it?  Will it be TriMet’s burden?  Is it ODOT’s burden?  In the end, it will of course come out of the taxpayer’s pockets, but that is moot as an assumed point.  I want to know when it will be fixed.

This is one of my ongoing comments about the approach to bus service (I know Erik Halstead has input on this in a number of ways) in the Portland area.  TriMet needs to team with ODOT & the city to make it a HIGH PRIORITY to build primary arterials that buses travel on at a higher quality than mere black top as most of 3rd and 4th are.  It doesn’t do anyone any good to have these streets whimsically destroyed like this because they’re just built crappy.  Often politicians get road funding but then just make sure they get votes for the projects but don’t build the infrastructure for the long term.  That type of nonsense has to stop.

It also brings up the thought, why not really build up the arterials (this is where the pro-bus and anti-rail people and I disagree) that have over 10k-12k riders.  Routes like Powell, Belmont, and Hawthorne should have higher capacity rail options such as light rail or streets (multi-unit).  Rail infrastructure obviously lasts longer than any type of utilized road infrastructure out there, yes at a higher cost, but the costs start to drop once you pay the capital and then inflation makes the price plummet.  Rail that costs a few hundred grand in 1960 is still used today in some cities.  Rail dropped in San Francisco in the 80s and 90s for half of what it would cost now is only at about 1/3 of its lifespan.  Between our monetary inflation system and the lifespan of rail, it easily becomes the cheapest option for high throughput long term right of way.  It needs viewed as such and utilized more.

So with this I mark the closure of the 3rd & 4th temporary bus mall in my own Transit Sleuth kind of way and await, impatiently, the future of transit in the Portland area.  Cheers! (Click on any of the images for the full size (up to 10MP – fair use if you want to use any of them in other media/material – no need to even credit me for these – I just want the street fixed!)

…and economic reality.

I just was watching this winning video, and the video properly states what New Urbanism is; AKA Old Urbanism, Traditional Neighborhood design.  Of course, as with all Government agendas they don’t mention we should actually return to the effective monetary policies and zoning practices that allowed the creation of these old urban and traditional neighborhood designs, they instead want to dictate and control the build out of these “new urban” designs.  This does cause concern from me, as it is against any notable choice, individual liberty, or freedom of the individual.  Often times the planners and Government leaders push forward with these efforts as if people choose not to live in cities and choose to live in the suburbs.  The politicians and planners often forget, the main enabler of suburbs, sprawl, and the whole damnable aspect of the wasteful, weakness inducing American stereotype is them and they're debt increasing subsidization of sprawl type development.  Now they try to hold us all accountable to this and people don't even realize they're living a heavily subsidized lifestyle.

Anyway, some of the comments on Youtube I just had to answer, because I'm always amazed at the lack of insight, context, or knowledge they often proffer.

From electer1776 these questions for the utopians:
1. How will you get people to leave their nice suburban homes? Force?
2. How will you stop people from fleeing your overcrowded utopia? Force?
3. How will you stop an explosion of crime in your overcrowded hell?
4. What will you do to control concentrated pollution in your overcrowded areas?
5. What size army will you need to oppress the people into your utopia?

This is simple.  There are many cities that prove these answer I’ll provide, including but not limited to;  Portland, OR, New York, NY, San Francisco, CA, San Diego, CA, even gasp Los Angeles, CA.  Add to that density increasing cities of Seattle, WA, Tuscon, AZ, Miami, FL, and hundreds more around the world.  When given options, people do NOT always choose a sprawling suburb.  Just as often, and usually more often, when provided a choice (which we haven’t had for years in the US) of a good city urban life versus the burbs, people will choose the urban lifestyle.  So, to the answers.

1. Offer then a choice.  Over the years people that want culture, night life, development & education, will often leave the burbs for the higher intensity of brain trust & creativity that is alive within cities.

2. People fled American cities for a number of reasons; white flight, mass subsidization of Interstates that encouraged sprawl, a drastic change in zoning which disabled people from living in cities or allowing cities to grow intelligently.  There where a number of reasons, and the flock often goes the way the herder encourages, so thus the people fled cities per what the Government thought was a grand idea – suburbs!  Now we're slowly finding out, as the market told us before, that suburbs aren't exactly feasible.  So after 50+ years of debt induced sprawl, we're being forced to cut back.  No longer is China and others so willing to keep buying our debt.  We’re going to have to start buying our own lives back now, and we're deeply owned by others already – it's a tough road ahead.

3. Crime?  Crime is a unique trait of lower income areas generally, NOT of a particular land development.  New Orleans is a prime example of a million plus people, with very high crime for the US.  Portland, Oregon is a prime example of a million plus people, with very low crime in the US.  You are simply correlating incorrect data points.  Correlation is not causation, simple fact.

4. Populated areas often have less pollution than less populated areas.  Take Portland & Seattle for example.  Compare that with Jacksonville, Florida or Atlanta, Georgia.  Both of those cities have tons more pollution, dirtier air, entire ghettos that are polluted in ways many don’t even know anymore.  These ghettos, are primarily suburban sprawl.

5. What size army?  Hell, Portland & Seattle don’t even need police in large number compared to sprawling areas like Atlanta or Jacksonville.  Jacksonville is close in population to Portland, it had more than 2x the murder rate for the last 30 years.  Atlanta, a little closer to Seattle, still vastly higher.  Don’t even get me started on other places like that.  As urban centers have lost the chaotic destruction caused by mass Interstate Subsidy and white flight, they’ve started to become lively again.  As suburbs mature they become more despotic and crime ridden.

I could go on for days.  The defense of suburbia is ridiculous.  The defense is infeasible.  Already, we can’t afford our military or the economic impact of this lifestyle.  So what do we do?

No matter what, we change.