Asymmetrical Information

Sounds like an interesting article. Do you have a link?

I work in Washington DC and drive in to work, even though my taking metro would be subsidized by my employer, because driving in takes about a half hour whereas I've never been able to get in on metro in less than an hour. So count me as one of those who votes with his wheels.

I also tend to favor a stiff gas tax. But that's for purely selfish reasons. I can afford it, but I imagine that if gas prices doubled from where they are today, it would knock at least a few cars off the road thereby reducing traffic (particularly on weekends). Then again, gas prices have doubled over the past 5 years or so* and I've not seen any appreciable change in traffic or its composition (eg, I haven't noticed fewer SUVs).

* At least in the DC area. In early 1999, prices for regular unleaded were below one dollar per gallon and, in some places, even lower than 80 cents per gallon.

What a wonderful post! I agree completely, although I would make a couple of supplemental observations. First, fossil fuels are as narrow as you want to go with your tax. There is a powerful argument to make the base all sources of inanimate energy -- otherwise you give other energy a big boost, and there might be political problems there (nuclear energy does not have many fans, for example, and it is not at all clear that ethanol production does anything other than buy votes in Iowa). Better, I think, to go with a BTU tax, and then exempt the really healthy stuff (solar?). Second, we might propose a society that both embraces the car and reduces, to some extent, its uses. For example, kids do not ride their bikes to school any more. There aren't even bike racks in front of most schools. It would be a simple matter to put in bike lanes, use school crossing guards (I suppose the trial lawyers have made it impossible to use older kids for that task, as we did back in the day), and restore paradise in lieu of the parking lots. Also, we could modify local zoning laws to ban these vast developments without any space for commercial establishments. My family, which burns 1500-2000 gallons of gas a year, would save a lot of gas if there were a convenience store at the end of my block. The booboisie might object to that 7/11, but it would be great for energy conservation.

Stop the presses! Mass transit only works where conditions are favorable!

Must have been a slow day at the NYT. This is news?

Contrary to the fantasies of those advocating universal mass transit, favorable passenger cost/mile just simply isn't easy to maintain in large and less densly populated metro areas. The extended area combined with lower population density is a killer and precludes doing so. Without favorable passenger cost/mile, you end up with either exhorbitant fares, sparse schedules, or huge operating losses (e.g., subsidies) - or some combination of all of the above.

In a large, old, and densly developed urban environment - such as the five cities you mention - mass transit can and does work reasonably well. Elsewhere, where things are spread out more, it simply doesn't work very well. Most other US metro areas follow the latter pattern.

Forgive me for observing that common sense would have told anyone with 3 or more brain cells to come to that conclusion a priori.

Jack:

Actually, the combination of a huge investment in nuclear plants to replace fossil fuel electrical generation - plus enough additional capacity to provide for large-scale hydrogen production through hydrolysis - would be my recommendation. Nuclear is inherently cleaner, is at least as easy to manage, and is as safe when properly managed as any other large-scale energy technology.

Moreover, hydrogen can - with only minor and proven modification to existing automotive and other equipment designs - replace both gasoline and natural gas in virtually any use. It also produces virtually no pollution when burned (no unburned HC, no C02, no particulate, etc . . . ; only [maybe] some NOx).

This solution would have the side benefit of producing a construction boom within the US (boosting the economy), and would make the US virtually independent on foreign energy sources when completed. Moreover, it would allow us to save domestic oil for those things that specifically require petroleum for its chemical - not energy - content.

Sadly, the anti-nuke wingnuts in the environmental movement have duped the US population regarding the safety of nuclear energy. Because of this fact, this eminently feasible alternative is almost certainly a political non-starter.

I'd be happy to have a significant energy tax, but only if payroll and corporate income taxes are rescinded.

As to mass transit, Minneapolis provides a great example of how politics screws up the marketplace. Minnesota is just now finishing a light rail project (which the previous governor became enamored with) that spent 750 million to build a line that will transport people 11 miles, from the Mall of America, to the airport, and then to downtown Minneapolis. Ridership is above projections so far (we'll see how long that continues), but the ongoing subsidies are going to be enormous, even discounting the cost of construction. Meanwhile, a now-unused rail right- of-way exists between downtown Minneapolis and the rapidly growing northwest suburbs, thus lowering the cost of buiding a 40 mile heavy rail transit line, which would roughly parallel an interstate that will otherwise need expansion at some point, to about 250 million, making the project far more efficient. Naturally, since the LRT will be seen as a boondoggle, the far more cost-efficient project will be tough to sell.

Markets are ahead of the politicians. A tariff of $50 a barrel on oil is a pretty stiff tax. Pebble bed reactors and hydrogen cars are the wave of the future. China will outstrip the US economically as they embrace this new technology while we do not.

Something else to think about: the unintended consequences of making it harder for those who can afford cars to have them. Unless mass transit absolutely saturates a city, you end up with property values near train/subway lines going up sharply, as people who might otherwise have spent money on a car, spend it on buying a place near a train station. This drives out poorer residents who can't afford the higher property taxes/mortgages/rent or to buy a car, and must now suffer longer walks to public transport, or a severely diminished choice of jobs. As Jane said, this affects most harshly the old, infirm, and those with small children, especially if they live in unfavorable climates.

Interesting--

I agree with you that mass transportation only makes sense in areas where the population density is very high (you don't explicitly say that but that is what it really boils down to.)

But why is it that you think that there should be a stiff tax on gasoline? A rather large chunk of energy consumption comes from home heating in the northeastern US. If I recall correctly, back in the the 1970's close to one-quarter of energy consumption came just from that Are there no "externalities" associated with this?

But then again, I guess one's version of "externalities" and who should pay for them depends a lot upon whose ox is being gored.

Tcobb -- if you'll notice, in the parenthetical I said "all fossil-fuel consumption". I favour taxes on home heating oil for the same reason I favour taxes on gasoline, coal-burning power plants, and petroleum jelly.

Tcobb, that's an interesting point. Do you have any links to back up your claim, preferably more recent that the 1970s? (Not trying to be snarky; I just really want to know if what you're saying is still true.)

> I do favour a stiff gasoline tax, because I think that drivers should pay for the negative externalities, from foriegn entanglements to global warming to air pollution, of their habits.

We have one. Why are you so certain that it's the wrong value?

Since the money collected isn't spent on mitigating the problem, advocates of such taxes are never satisfied, and can't be.

But, if we're going to play that game, shouldn't we also tax cities with tall buildings that attract terrorists? Shouldn't we tax cities with high population densities that attract attacks?

Are you *sure* that the primary reason that obesity is high has to do with the car? Might there be other factors, like food consumption patterns or the like?

There was a graph in the Atlantic a couple months back showing the difference in average weight between the rural and urban areas. Sure enough -- the average was higher for rural folks than the urban. What was the difference, you ask? Why, 161 versus 168 lbs.

Oooh, big difference! Hope those rural people don't die of that extra seven pounds!

This just in: Americans will never give up their cars to sit on a bus next to some guy with hygiene and/or anger-management problems.

Never.

Never, never, never EVER.

That is all.

I do have to say one thing against, um, non-smart growth, which I'm sure everyone is familiar with but I don't see mentioned yet. It positively sucks to live there if you are too young, old, or disabled to have a car.

The alternative to struggling with grocies/squeezing a family into an apartment isn't always "drive." It can be take the bus to school, take the bus home, sit on your ass with the computer or take your life in your hands with a bicycle. There's a good reason why so many of the mass-transit-crazy twentysomethings you meet will tell you they grew up in New Jersey or Long Island, two areas of the country with a high driving age and huge stretches of humanity with none of that smart growth.

Jane--
I do apologise--I think--but from the way you worded it I got an impression, perhaps unwarranted, that the tax on gasoline should be especially high. I don't really have any problems with an equal tax, that is, placing it on the crude oil that is processed into whatever, but when the government starts taxing it on the basis of what it is turned into then my cynicism starts to go to full boil.

E.Nough--
No, I don't have any limks. I just have memories from before the Net existed. I'm not sure, but I think that information came from Time Magazine. I do remember however that back in the administration of Jimmy Carter that the government, relying upon the predictions of meteorologists that the coming winter was going to be especially cold, decreed that the oil companies should produce and stock up on home heating oil. They did. But since it was still summer they had to store it in places that normally were used as conduits for moving gasoline. The result? It disrupted the flow of gasoline. I was living in Houston at that time and I remember the gas lines. There really wasn't a shortage of gas, the government decree had just thrown one hell of a monkey wrench in the distribution network.

It hard for people in New York to believe but 85% of Americans do not live in cities nor do they want to. These Americans live in suburbs and rural areas. The American Dream is to not live in cities.

“Smart Growth” people will have to realize that they have to deal with cars and suburbs or be willing to have massive executions of suburbanites.

Most jobs in most urban areas are in the suburbs where people live not in the downtown areas. That is why most urban transit projects are failures.

Jake,

I beg to differ. The "American Dream" is to live where you want.

I have no idea where you got that 85% number, but please furnish us with some hard statistical evidence to support your claim.

Otherwise Jane, I completely agree.

This is really a dumb argument. Take Los Angeles for example. Before the Ventura Freeway was built the San Fernando Valley was a very low density rural area. The freeway allowed for increased development but for the first decades the freeway was pretty free flowing. Now that the freeway has reached its practical maximum use the only alternative is to build out the subway system to serve the valley. There is no land available for further freeway expansion. Development will take place close to the subway stations AFTER they are built, just like devepment initially occurred in the Valley AFTER the Ventura Freeway was completed.

If instead of freeways being built the city fathers maintained the original Red Line trolleys and expanded on them Los Angeles would not be as dependent upon the auto as it is today.

Build it and they will come.

Kate,

Your point doesn't make any sense. Of course people want to live where they want to live. Jake's contention is that the substantive "want" is to not live in a city.

Yes, statistics would be nice, but I don't think they're absolutely vital in this context. For one thing there are historical trends to consider that unambiguously show a move away from urbanized environs (after the big move from rural to urban). Secondly, it's a natural inclination for families (still the vast majority of households) to want a house, not an apartment, and preferably one with a yard and other suburban benefits.

I rather think a demand for cold hard numbers would be more warranted in the context of claiming the opposite of what Jake said - that people would rather live in cities - since it runs contrary to what I think is pretty strong anecdotal evidence and general assumptions that people have.

Ken,

No way. LA is much too dispersed for that. So someone lives next to a subway station? Bully for them; now they can get to a supremely limited number of destinations that the system serves compared to LA as a whole.

And if you want to build and operate an extensive enough system to meaningfully service a sufficiently significant portion of the city, I suggest you find that several trillion dollars. Try the couch.

Russel,

LA Freeways are at gridlock. The ONLY alternative is public transportation. Densities will increase AFTER the lines go in, just like with the freeways.

Hondo: "Moreover, hydrogen can - with only minor and proven modification to existing automotive and other equipment designs - replace both gasoline and natural gas in virtually any use."

I agree that this is true in principle. However, in an application such as home heating, it has to be all or nothing, I think. The compressors and pipes might be capable of delivering hydrogen; it may be possible to modify furnaces to burn hydrogen; but unless I'm mistaken, you couldn't mix methane and hydrogen within the single system and make it work. If there's a real expert reading, please comment.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned what I regard as somewhat obvious: one partial solution is to reduce the number of trips people take each week. Certainly not all jobs are suitable, but many jobs could be done from home one day per week, or might be suitable for four 10-hour days instead of five eight-hour ones. If everyone could do it, there would immediately be a near 20% reduction in volume on the freeways, particularly at rush hour. Is it possible for local government to provide incentives for such changes, rather than simply trying to pave more lanes?

Moreover, it would allow us to save domestic oil for those things that specifically require petroleum for its chemical - not energy - content.

Yes, but oil refininig is still ONLY a biasable distillation process, and given our present reliance on petrochemicals for most consumer goods, a lot of surplus gasoline will be hanging around. Of course, I suppose most of that surplus gasoline will increasingly be produced in China anyway, not the US, but then what of our domestic oil stocks? I see some significant political problems there.

-----

I agree that this is true in principle. However, in an application such as home heating, it has to be all or nothing, I think. The compressors and pipes might be capable of delivering hydrogen; it may be possible to modify furnaces to burn hydrogen; but unless I'm mistaken, you couldn't mix methane and hydrogen within the single system and make it work.

In theory, it's possible, but the system would have to be designed with both in mind. Both burn with a very similar chemical oxidation process except that hydrogen has more stringent storage and plumbing requirements, and methane ignites at a lower temperature than hydrogen while producing soot and carbon monoxide if combusted incompletely. These factors have general implications on system design and specific implications on particular applications like e.g. internal combusion engines.

From Jane's original post:

I do favour a stiff gasoline tax, because I think that drivers should pay for the negative externalities, from foriegn entanglements to global warming to air pollution, of their habits. (I favour a tax on all fossil-fuel consumption,

The glaring problem in such an ideal is that first, even in theory such a tax would be hard pressed to directly combat the actual externalities; and second, in practice it never would once the politicians and rent-seekers finished bungling its collection and distribution mechanisms.

A "stiff gasoline tax," though it might eminently 'fair' in terms of accounting for externalities, would be just like any other flat tax: the poor get hit first, which doesn't seem wise to me since you just made an eloquent case for the necessity and greater efficiency of an automobile outside of dense urban regions. Why not reduce the level of overall externalities in the first place, while progressively generating revenue to deal with them? Something like an annual car registration tax increasing exponentially based on engine displacement, already implemented in various forms by several European countries, would answer both counts rather well. (Of course the problem of our truck-shipping dependency would have to be answered, with the potential to encounter the same pitfalls currently inhabited by CAFE, but it would be a good start.)

Also, what are you going to tell someone in, say, rural Idaho who currently has no good options for winter heat except fuel oil? Once you get into Washington and Oregon many people use electric heat because electricity is provided cheaply by the Columbia River, but much of the Pacific Northwest region is unserved by natural gas, and the terrain would make the infrastructure installation an expensive proposition indeed. Propane might be an option (assuming you want a significantly higher number of volatile fuel trucks traveling the interstate highways up there, some of which are quite twisted and narrow -- the terrain problem, again), but first one has to rent a storage tank and replace or convert the oil furnace. There might even be the possibility of creating a perverse incentive toward excessive woodburning, which fails to solve the problem while making a large chunk of it regulatoraly unaccountable.

In short, I admire the goal of your viewpoint here, but in the real world I think it would merely yield a different route to the status quo, rather than a measurable improvement.

From the original article:

(Vans offering door-to-door service are a boon to the elderly and people without cars.)

This was the only reference I saw to the car-less, and it's so naive and irrelevant it's not even funny. Yes, I remember vans cruising around my suburban neighborhood offering to take 15-year-olds to the store or the Rutgers museums for a nominal fee.

It is interesting that down here in DC, where "smart-growth" got a big boost from the former MD governor, people fight it like mad. They don't want to have people build on the vacant lots that they have gotten used to using as playgrounds by their kids. They don't want any more development around metro stops, because they don't want the traffic/congestion/extra "outsiders" in their neighborhoods. They don't want large apartment blocks that generate high density. They don't want stores on the first floors of low-rise apartments (think European cities). They don't even want people to cut down "weed" trees that they have come to love. They fight all of this "smart-growth" activity with law suits and laws that make it more and more difficult to do anything to the current situation.

I lived in a city that would qualify as a "smart-growth" model - Paris, France, that had all of attributes. No place in the city is further than 500 meters from a metro stop. There are very few single houses, and most people live in 5-8 storey apartment blocks, with businesses on the ground floor/basement. We could easily go for weeks without using a car, but it was certainly not a low-car place. Everyone seemed to have a car, and they park EVERYWHERE. And the traffic jams are horrible. And when the unions decide to hold a public transit strike, the traffic is unimaginable.

Americans just don't want to live that way, and I don't think that any amount of moralizing will convince them otherwise. The only outcome of the "smart-growth" movement is greater frustration suffered by people who want to build homes or businesses as they fight their way through the barriers that are gradually being erected by do-gooders who think they know how everyone "should" live their lives.

Ralph makes an interesting point that Americans do not want to adopt a European model but I must say that such a model does work fairly well - albeit I assume fairly expensively for the Public Sector.

Having spent some time Europe and having commuted about a bit on public transportation I have to say that it is a bit of marvel in some cities. I have family in Stuttgart, for example, that, while they do own a car, rarely use it. Between bikes and public trans, getting around is pretty sweet and not terribly expensive. Two other places, Tokyo and Amsterdam, where I was stationed for work for a time were pretty much the same: at least for everyplace I had to go. In the Netherlands from the airport to the city and even out to visit clients as far afield as Eindhoven, I could use public trans for 90% of all the travel I needed to do...

anony-mouse:

I don't believe the difference in ignition temperature between hydrogen and methane (585C vs 540C) is anywhere near significant. Both are easily reachable by spark systems commonly in use for automobiles, electric furnaces, and the like.

The fact that hydrogen produces no soot is a significant plus in nearly any application. This would likely mean that hydrogen would perform better and more reliably over the long term than methane in most applications.

I don't see a significant safety difference. Both hydrogen and methane are volatile and are flammible or explosive when mixed with air. Both can be delivered as compressed gases (like natural gas is delivered now). Due to its smaller molecular weight and consequent greater gas volume per unit weight, tanks for storing pressurized hydrogen might need to be more robust. The threshhold values for air ignition are similar (4% for hydrogen, 5.3% for methane). It can be argued that hydrogen is significantly safer regarding detonation threshhold (minimum is 13% for hydrogen vs 6.3% for methane - though methane has a tighter explosive range, 6.3%-13.5%, vs 13%-65% for hydrogen). Adding an odorant, as is done now with natural gas, would probably be required for widespread hydrogen use.

By volume, hydrogen has less energy than methane; by mass, much more. Different metering/jetting/combustion chamber design might be required (not my area of engineering expertise - although I believe I've read that current engine designs will run fine given a properly metered hydrogen/air mixture). Even the problem of water vapor in exhaust is not new, as burining hydrocarbon fuel (liquid or gas) produces water as a waste product. For internal combustion engines, the fact that no catalytic converter would be necessary - along with no air injection, exhaust gas recirculation, and all of the other past or current emissions control plumbing - would be a REAL benefit for both cost and long-term reliability.

In short, hydrogen seems to be a pretty damned good choice for fuel. Producing it is not really a problem if you have plenty of electricity. Nuclear reactors can produce plenty of electricity safely, cheaply, and cleanly.

Sadly, I'm virtually certain that the anti-nuke wing of the environmental crowd will prevent this from ever happening. I guess they'd rather see people breathe polluted air and look at strip mines than see clean, safe nuclear reactors built in quantity.

Russell,

You completely misunderstand. I do not debate that a majority of people want to live in the 'burbs or the country. I debate the contention that, "[i]t hard for people in New York to believe but 85% of Americans do not live in cities nor do they want to. These Americans live in suburbs and rural areas. The American Dream is to not live in cities."

And I repeat, the American Dream is to live where you want to. If the American Dream was not to live in cities than the largest number of Millionaire would not have homes in New York City. Many of the people I know who live in suburbs live there because they can not afford to live in cities, not because they don't want to live in cities (and even more of them would love to be able to afford a second home in the city, so they could give their kids a yard to play in sometimes and yet offer them all the benefits of the city). And I reitterate, that 85% number is very high and I'd like to see a some statistical evidence of that, otherwise it's just a made-up number I do not believe and therefore it devalues his argument.

Hondo,

The idea of a hydrogen economy is vastly oversold. If you haven't already, go read Stephen DenBeste's many essays on the subjects of Hydrogen production, storage, transportation and scalability.

In a nutshell, it's not going to happen anytime soon and you'll just turn blue from holding your breath waiting.

Actually, the largest number of millionaires per capita in the United States are not in New York City. Some of them do, no doubt, own a house there, but not as their primary residence. At least as of the late 1980's—the last time I had first-hand knowledge of the statistics—the town with the largest number of millionaires per capita in the United States was Kenilworth, IL, a very nice town nestled among Chicago's northwest suburbs, an easy hour's drive away from the city, and a good, healthy bike ride away from Northwestern University, the beautiful B'hai Temple, the beaches on the western shore of Lake Michigan, and so forth.

Anecdotally, my experience with both millionaires and non-millionaires is that they don't want to live in the city, but want to be able to go there without it being a two-hour commute each way. The claim that urbanites find this astonishing also matches my experience: when I moved from Venice, California (Venice! Venice Beach! The very definition of the funky high life!) to the San Fernando Valley, aka Soccer Mom Central, almost all of my friends thought I was nuts. I could not make them understand that I did. not. plan. to. live. in. the. city. any. longer. than. I. had. to.

But as with so many other things, they're surrounded by people who agree with them and I'm surrounded by people who agree with me. Statistically, though, the original claim still holds: America has about 210 million people, of whom about 30 million live in New York, LA, or Chicago, leaving about 180 million people for the smaller cities (Indianapolis, the city I grew up about an hour away from, is around 13-14 on the list), suburban, and rural areas. So about 14% of America's population is concentrated in the top three most populous cities. Sure, there are people who would like to live in a big city but can't. There are also people who think they would like to live in a big city but wouldn't. I encourage everyone to at least try it to see what suits them. A newspaper columnist whose name regrettably escapes me just now put it best when he/she said, as I recall, "Everyone should live in San Francisco for a while, but leave before they get soft. Everyone should live in New York for a while, but leave before they get hard." Words to live by.

It's not just the American Dream, either. Even Paris, noted above as an example of the advantages of urban living and mass transit excellence, is experiencing sprawl.

From the NYT article Jane references:

As it happens, that experiment has already been conducted in Europe with surprisingly little effect. To American tourists who ride the subways in the carefully preserved old cities, the policies seem to have worked. But it turns out that the people who live there aren't so different from Americans. Even with $5-per-gallon gasoline, the number of cars per capita in Europe has been growing faster than in America in recent decades, while the percentage of commuters using mass transit has been falling. As the suburbs expand, Europe's cities have been losing people, too. Paris is a great place to visit, but in the past half-century it has lost one-quarter of its population.

"Cities are spreading virtually everywhere in the world despite all the antisprawl measures," says Peter Gordon, a professor at the University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning and Development. "As soon as people have enough money, they want their car."

"LA Freeways are at gridlock. The ONLY alternative is public transportation."

Not really.

In 25 years, every new automobile will probably be driven entirely by computer. As a result, autombiles will cruise at 70 mph separated by 5 feet or less. Cars will pass within feet of each other at right angles at intersections. Road capacity (number of passengers per hour) could easily be tripled.

The public transportation systems that are on the drawing boards today (e.g. light rail here in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area in North Carolina) will probably be not be necessary a very short time into their life (figuring 15-20 years to design and build).

P.S. And this does not even count the possibility of computer-assisted car pooling, which can be implemented right now, and could be much better implemented in another 10 years...

Many comments raise fair points.
But there is a point that nobody seems to have questioned in the original post:

Jane ends her post with

But the aggressive tactics of smart-growthers need a rethink. It seems to me that their attempts to drive Americans out of their cars are likely to succeed only in driving unfortunate members of the middle class into substandard housing and near-penury.

I'm not sure how creating denser housing is going to make the cost of existing housing increase. "Smart growth" is, at its best, an attempt to make high-density housing more desireable to people who don't want to live in cities -- or how do but can't afford to. Jane is correct in that it will probably largely appeal to younger and more affluent people, but if that decreases the pressure on the existing housing market, that will enable the less-affluent to buy those houses.

For a place like DC, where I work, it makes good sense. There's already a lot of it, complexes near Metro stops. Living walking distance from the Metro (I don't; I have to drive to the nearest stop) and working walking distance from the stop (which a huge number of people do) would make a car almost unnecessary. Being able to walk to the market and shops would mean that the car gets fired up only to go visit.

The fact that this would be something that I'd only enjoy until the kids are old enough to want a bigger place to play, or until my arthritis gets too bad to carry groceries, or until my mother-in-law needs to move in, is irrelevant. If and when, you sell to another young and well-off and move to a single-family.

There's also the point that those suburban houses are also a problem. That lawn is a pain to care for once the kids have moved out, and climbing the stairs gets to be problem for grandma. The furnace needs replaced, and that tree in the back yard has to be felled; the roof is getting old and the window frames need scraped and painted.

I just want to point out that there is a sharp distinction between "Smart Growth" and "New Urbanism." New Urbanism is less about mass transit, getting people out of cars, or forcing people to live in cities. It's more about relaxing zoning laws to allow mixed use and promoting building styles that are more friendly to pedestrians. This way, you can still drive a car, but you aren't forced to use one just to get by. And it can be much more of a market-oriented approach. Note that the precepts of New Urbanism can be applied in both urban and suburban areas.

Panthan, if the smart growth people limited themselves to changing the zoning code to allow denser housing, I'd be cheering them on. But they certainly don't stop there. They zone "greenbelts" which artificially contract the supply of land/housing, forcing up prices for both new and existing housing; they fight tooth and nail against roads that might allow the poorer people (who generally have to live in farther out locations than the wealthy) faster commutes. In many ways, large and small, they fight against the infrastructure for "sprawl", even when the infrastructure for their preferred way of life is absent or inadequate. This forces the lower middle class into crappy, expensive housing, miserable commutes, and all the rest of it.

Everything is more expensive in cities for two reasons: real estate costs are higher, both for the stores and their warehouses; and distribution costs are higher, because it takes a lot longer to run deliveries in densely populated streets than on highways, even when the various delivery destinations are far-flung. During the day in smart-growth paradise Manhattan, average traffic speed in high-density areas is about 1/20th of a mile every 3 minutes (1 block per each traffic light cycle.) So smart-growth means, by definition, more expensive living. That might change if you fully priced the energy externalities, but I doubt it.

The fact is, public transportation is an absolute failure everywhere it has been tried except for cities which grew up around a public transportation network in the pre-automobile era.

Works great in Kuala Lumpur (and in Singapore too)

If it's hideously expensive to run empty trains, why don't they run one or two-car trains during the off hours? I'm not saying that it would be profitable the way rush-hour trains are, but it should help.

It doesn't really matter whether urban or suburban is better. What really matters is that the actual costs of living in an area are paid by those making the choices. The building of roads, electrification, etc are costs frequently borne by government and are not built into the price of moving to a developing area.

For example, if free highways hide the part of cost of living in suburbia or subsized mass transit hides the cost of living in a city, decisions made by people are affected.

Efforts should be made to prevent decisions by government from influencing such decisions. It could be argued that a lot of the traffic in suburbia is due to zoning (businesses not located near housing), property tax issues, etc.

"Attempts to drive Americans out of their cars are likely to succeed only in driving unfortunate members of the middle class into substandard housing and near-penury."

Uh..Nice try but you didn't make the connection.

You are saying that there is a causality between X ("trying to decrease car use", which in itself indicates an odd understanding of smart growth) and Y (essentially "impoverishing people") but you do not explain how.

In fact, you can't.

That fact that denser areas generaly cost more than low density places should be taken to reveal how people value density. It does not imply that all people will value it the same. Cute as they are the personal anecdotes don't mean much. They are so fun to write though that I feel compeled to give my own~

I like living where I can walk to everything I need, and take a five minute drive to work. For me the short commute is more time with my son, more time helping the wife get some rest, and it's the expence of living in a denser area (The Mission Hills area next to Hillcrest for those who know San Diego)

"it is not so terrific if you have to choose between wasting several precious hours standing around the playground"

I may be in the minority, but going to the park with my little one is the most valueable part of my day. Its one of the things I pay extra expense for to lower my commute time! But to each thier own...though if you read that sentance and it doesn't sound alarm bells off in your head you should probably think hard before becoming a parent.

"I dislike the compartmentalisation of our lives that neighbourhoods without sidewalks imply."

What the heck is this supposed to mean? I believe some clarification necessary.

P.S. What's with the spelling? Do you live in Manhattan, or London?

At the risk of being branded a troll (I used to read and post more frequently but have been busy), I'd like to add my $0.02.

First off: as someone above has said, increasing a gas tax will do nothing to decrease driving. Only tourism based economies will suffer, because people will be spending all of there gas money on just commuting. It seems odd that a libertarian would want to increase a tax on something he/she finds objectionable. Isn't that what gave us our currenty Byzantine tax code?

Secondly: I would venture to say that most areas of the country are unable to either a) use mass transit, b) encourage bicycles or c) encourage pedestrians. Either the area is too spread out or does not have sufficient sidewalks, road shoulders, etc. Imagine if instead of a 100 cars on the road with ~3 people, we had 300 bicycles on the road.

Thirdly: equating rural obesity with driving is a little silly. There is nothing but anecdotal evidence. Obesity could be tied to education, economic station, or eating too much and excersising too little. Having to drive to work instead of walk because of a lack of infrastructure is a straw man for rural obesity.

No, I don't have any links to anything. Just someone, who has lived most of my life in the sticks.

Funny, when you say smart growth, you really just mean "city".

But using the word "smart growth" gives your litany of complaints about cities the appearance of intellectual heft.

To wit:
[Cities are] great if you are an upscale professional, preferably without children, who can score a relatively large apartment fairly close to work. I...
[Cities are]great if you are savvy enough to manipulate an urban school system into keeping your children away from the poor kids [read Stupid, Black and/or Latino]...

[Cities are] is great if you can afford to have everything you buy delivered [yes, free Safeway delivery is very expensive], or are in excellent physical condition with a physically undemanding job; it is not so great if you have to come home from your shift at the nursing home to lug groceries a quarter-mile down the street [a quarter of a mile walking is VERY VERY FAR and people in cities don't have shopping carts], and then up three flights of stairs [Oh the horrors, three flights of stairs!].

Wow, though I don't know you, I guess you are white, more than just a little afraid of black people, live in the suburbs, have a white-collar job, feel that liberals look down on you for not being cosmopolitan enough, walk only for exercise or to take the cocker spaniel for its nightly constitutional, buy your clothes at the mall and drive an SUV.

I want to second fling98's comment that you're being too hard on smart growth. Some of the problems that you mention I think are just characteristics New York happens to have rather than necessary effects of dense living.

Urban schools may be bad at this point in history, but I don't think that's caused by urban density per se. Paying someone to deliver your groceries doesn't have to cost more than buying a car in which to haul them yourself. Your townhouse can have a backyard and roof top deck even if it has no side or front yard. A townhouse can have as many rooms as a regular house if it's three stories instead of two, and the kitchen can still be on the first floor so you don't have to worry about hauling groceries up the stairs. The more subway stations there are, the less housing prices near them will get bid up. Etc.

In sum just because it's impossible to have a comfortable middle class family life in New York doesn't mean it's impossible to construct an approximation of your dream community on a middle class scale.

Also there are some big convenience and safety benefits to having a professional drive you around. You don't have to plan your life around making sure you're sober, alert, and emotionally collected enough to operate heavy machinery responsibly. You don't have to worry about some moron plowing into you at a red light, or stealing your subway car while you're in the store. Way more people are killed by idiots who don't know how to drive than by psychos in the subway.

Jimbob, you should not try to make a living on your guessing. I am white, but it doesn't really get much more cosmopolitan than me, since I was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I have strayed from my city neighbourhood exactly twice, once to Philadelphia's west side, and once to the south side of Chicago, which should put to rest any notion that I fear black people. I'm a journalist, which is about as sexy and intellectual as jobs get in America--even liberals respect my job, as I work for a particularly prestigious publication. While I do take the dog for a morning (and evening) constitutional, it's a bullmastiff, which I cram into my 400-square foot cave of an apartment. I buy my clothes at little places on the street in New York City, and I don't own a car. The only car I ever did own got almost 30 mpg, and was purchased for economy, not size. Since I don't own a car, I walk everywhere, including the 2.5 miles home from work during nice weather, which is a nice cheap substitute for the gym.

I love the urban lifestyle. But I also recognize that the high densities of New York City are increasingly pricing out all but the super-wealthy. The building I grew up in was a nice place for middle-class families in the seventies, where my parents never used a babysitter because they could drop me off at one of my friends' houses across the lobby, and pick me up when I got home. Now the hallways are crowded with nannies, because the only people who can afford to live where I grew up are those making upwards of half a million dollars a year. A two bedroom apartment in my parents' building--which is not in the fashionable part of the upper west side--now goes for north of $1 million. A middle class family living in New York, making less than $100K a year, faces commutes of more than an hour each way if they work in Manhattan. That's how far they have to go to get a minimal amount of space. I love my 400sqft cave, but there's no question of my raising a child there, much less two.

There are certainly tradeoffs between city and suburbs, and I am second to none in enjoying the benefits of city living . . . that's why I choose to live here. What irks me is that the smart growth people often don't seem to acknowlege the tradeoffs involved in the choices they are trying to force people to make.

Anne, I've seen the arguments for townhouse-based smart growth, but I don't buy it. At the densities that make public transportation work, there simply isn't room for anything that could meaningfully be called a yard. At least, the ones that I see in the brownstone neighbourhoods where it works aren't really big enough for kids to play in; I mean, your kids can take the barbies outside and get some son, but there's certainly no more room for them to run around than in your average size dining room. (Most public transportation commuting in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia goes from high-density to high-density neighbourhoods, leaving the lower density neighbourhoods accessible only by bus. This makes them highly undesireable places to live, since busses are slow, and it's no fun changing busses in the rain.)

Joe,

My point isn't that hydrogen as a primary fuel will happen any time soon. It won't.

I had three points to make. You apparently missed them.

My first point is that given sufficient electricity, hydrogen can be produced on demand from water in whatever quantity is required; produces virtually no pollution when burned; and is no more difficult to transport/store/use than is natural gas (regardless of what DenBeste thinks). If we can safely store/transport/use natural gas, I regard it as demonstrated that we can do the same with hydrogen.

My second point is that the technology exists now - in the form of nuclear power - to produce, at a reasonable cost with virtually no pollution, effectively unlimited amounts of electricity. It is a political decision not to do so, not an economic one.

My third point is that the anti-nuclear wing of the environmental movement is the primary reason for the lack of political will to use nuclear power. In my opinion, they are nothing but damnable technically illiterate hypocrites who would rather have avoidable polution than admit they are wrong.

Jane --

if the smart growth people limited themselves to changing the zoning code to allow denser housing, I'd be cheering them on. But they certainly don't stop there.

No, they don't. As you say, they require greenzones, but the total housing density is still higher (by quite a lot) than the result of the one house per five acres that is common in Virginia (one in ten acres in some areas; and I don't know all the zoning laws, so I don't know how much area is covered by what level of restriction).

My comments are based on recent proposals I've seen for in-fill housing and growth here in northern Virginia, so I may be assuming a more intelligent "smart growth" proponent than you are familiar with. Or I may not know the depths of their depravity; I'm willing to postulate that. But I think the proposals I have seen, which have included the the necessary infrastructure, have not been as bad as those you seem to reference.

Everything is more expensive in cities for two reasons....

Irrelevant -- smart growth does not (or at least should not) equate to cities. The more common current proposal is the village model. I don't think it will work as well as the planners hope, but it won't work as badly as Manhattan (which you call "smart-growth paradise". Why?). Indeed, how does the greenbelt fit into the city paradigm?

The space for stores and other support business is factored in to the planning in smart growth; it is zoned for that use, so the real estate price should not be artificially inflated. But that may be only the few proposals I've seen.

they fight tooth and nail against roads that might allow the poorer people (who generally have to live in farther out locations than the wealthy) faster commutes. In many ways, large and small, they fight against the infrastructure for "sprawl", even when the infrastructure for their preferred way of life is absent or inadequate.

A couple of recent studies indicate that building new roads and widening existing ones leads to greater congestion than leaving them alone; it seems to be an "if you build it, they will come" situation. But the smart growth proposals I have seen include the necessary roads and other infrastructure.

I can't disagree with your post, in that certainly if your premises are true, then your conclusion follows. But I think your premises are overstated; I believe it possible to be an advocate of smart growth without damning the poor (the not-incredibly wealthy?) to a life of hovels and traffic jams. I just didn't recognize your equation of "smart growth advocate" == "utter looney-tune".

To me sitting inside a metal box staring out at other metal boxes, waiting for them to move ahead or out of my way, sitting at red lights, etc. is a distinctly unrewarding activity. Americans vote with their wheels, yes, but such voting can lead to things other than the intended results, like chronic traffic jams, 5-mile-an-hour rides to work. In other words, as population density grows in historically suburban areas, public transit may begin to make a comeback. Los Angeles is the leading edge.

"But I also recognize that the high densities of New York City are increasingly pricing out all but the super-wealthy."

I wonder if I'm missing something here. If there were fewer apartments in NYC set in lower density, wouldn't this scarcity make the City an even more expensive place to live in?

Everything is more expensive in cities for two reasons: real estate costs are higher, both for the stores and their warehouses; and distribution costs are higher, because it takes a lot longer to run deliveries in densely populated streets than on highways, even when the various delivery destinations are far-flung.

I tend to believe that residential real estate costs are high in (some) cities because people desire to live in them, and commercial real estate costs are high because of the high profits that can be made by occupying it. Now there may be cases where competition between different industries alters this -- e.g., if a food warehouse needs to compete with an investment bank for a plot of land, you'll feel it at the grocery store. But the general situation is that infrastructure costs (for delivery, transport, etc.) are cheaper in cities, and are not what drives the higher costs.

Manhattan's residential market is further exacerbated by the length of time it takes to commute in from the boroughs. Express service is not sufficient (and cars don't help), so people would rather pay hundreds extra in rent than lose 2-3 hours per day on the trains. Not sure if this is easy to fix, but yes, even NYC has its public transit problems..

I wish the car makers would be encouraged to produce cars thinking more in terms of milage and safety. I like the idea of a higher tax rate on the sale of poor milage vehicles. I can stomach an increase in the gas taxes, but then here on the Ga SC border gas is cheap compared to the rest of the country.

Im surprised I havent seen the idea that the ever expanding suburban sprawl has made public transportation more expensive and harder to provide. Many people who work in the urban core want to live at least an hour away from it. The cities with high population densities seem to provide the best public transportation.

Some time ago I read that LA in the early 1900s had great public transportation, but had it butchered due to lobbying by Henry Ford. Its not something I recall in depth, but thought I'd put it out there.

> The more common current proposal is the village model.

Except that the village model doesn't work for families that have two or more people working outside the home.

When there are two or more such people, odds are they don't work close to one another, the exceptions being very dense cities and company towns.

And, many/most people don't work at the same location for 10 years these days, so even if I can work in the village today, I probably won't be working there soon.

I'm confused. How is making "not city" living more expensive going to reduce the cost of city living?

If we really had a pro-mass-transit program, we would try to improve the economies of New York/Hudson County, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, etc. The simplest way to put more money into those areas is tax cuts for the obscenely wealthy.

I don't believe the difference in ignition temperature between hydrogen and methane (585C vs 540C) is anywhere near significant. Both are easily reachable by spark systems commonly in use for automobiles, electric furnaces, and the like.

The question is not "easily reachable," the question is actually "reached too easily," at least where internal combustion engines are concerned. A typical car engine uses a 'four stroke' method of combusion, involving two complete revolutions. The first downstroke pulls in the fuel/air mixture; the first upstroke compresses it; the spark fires; the second downstroke supplies power to the crankshaft; the second upstroke forces out the waste gas. The problem is on the second stroke, where you want to compress the mixture just shy of combustion. Per the ideal gas law pV=mRT, the temperature T rises during compression because volume V decreases while all other factors are effectively unchanged. Thus there is the potential for the mixture to sometimes preignite before the spark fires. This is called "knock," and at best it can result in an inefficient burn along with power loss, and at worst, throw off the engine rhythm resulting in destructive vibration.

It can be controlled for in the design, and usually doesn't occur (except in diesels, which actually exploit the principle because the fuel behaves differently) unless a car is seriously out of tune or a bad batch of gasoline is encountered. However, if an engine is expected to burn two fuels with different combustion temperatures, the engine must be designed and/or tuned with that expectation in mind. Otherwise, it either will suffer knock on the lower-temperature fuel or inefficiently combust the higher-temperature fuel.

and is no more difficult to transport/store/use than is natural gas (regardless of what DenBeste thinks). If we can safely store/transport/use natural gas, I regard it as demonstrated that we can do the same with hydrogen.

Apparently, you're unfamiliar with hydrogen embrittlement of steel. G00gle a page of your choice for a full explanation, but summarily, because of its small size, hydrogen can work its way into the steel and recombine with carbon molecules to produce methane molecules, which then form tiny high-pressure pockets that gradually weaken and fracture the steel over time. So no, a network that can handle natural gas it not necessarily safe for hydrogen.

Also, though I don't know if it matters in the case of methane vs. hydrogen, before declaring the problem solved you do have to take into account the fact that many plastics and rubbers are inherently semiporous on the microscopic level, and molecules of a smaller size (such as, perhaps, H2 compared to CH4) may leech out of the vessel or pipe even though molecules of a larger size can be safely transported in such a vessel or pipe.

what the...

"Your post could not be posted because of questionable content: G00gle"???!!

Uh, Mindles? About this spam filter...

(note that I'm using zeros for Os in order to bypass it)

Hondo (and others thinking that nukes are the solution), I strongly recommend that you read the book Normal Accidents. It covers what sort of systemic accidents have been going on, what could be done to reduce them, and what has risks that are rather unacceptable, even at lowest level one can get to. Humans have been making dams for over 2000 years, and they still fail because we still don't fully understand them. Petrochemical plants still explode every year, even though we have had the last 120 years to try to understand them. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island show that nuclear plant (at least the big fancy kind we have been making) are too complicated for humans to safely design, build, operate and maintain. But then power generation was always a secondary consideration in the design of US power plants.

Why did folks in the 1950s and 1960s claim that nuclear power would be too cheap to meter? They were planning their economics around selling the uranium/plutonium from the spent rods to the government to make into bombs. Making electricity would be a by-product of the heat generated. US, French and Russian reactors have all been designed around similar operating conditions: they are optimized to make weapon grade stuff. The Canadian (and the pebble bed design that's in the news lately) designs are different, and are much much harder to turn into bomb factories.

The dangers of posting late at night...I misquoted the effect of the ideal gas law with respect to the internal combusion engine's compression stroke.

pV=mRT

p=pressure, V=volume, m=mass, R=gas constant, T=temperature

During the compression stroke the mass and gas constant do not change significantly because the quantity and composition of the gas (here, a fuel/air mixture) is already 'set' for that cycle. For theoretical purposes we can idealize them as "mR=1," leaving us with

pV=T

So, although V decreases, p disproportionately increases IIRC, and consequently, T must also increase.

I live in Oakland, and work in San Francisco. When I've had a job in San Francisco in the Financial District (walking distance from BART), I've taken BART, because while a little more expensive, it's usually less stressful than driving. My current job is in Potrero Hill, two miles by bus from BART. On a bad day driving (no carpoolers, heavy traffic), it might take me almost an hour to get to work. On a good day on public transit (catch the correct train, the bus isn't late), it would take me 1:05. It's taken me over 90 minutes on public transit, with some significant portion of that standing on a bus - fortunately, the frequency of "guy[s] with hygiene and/or anger-management problems" is pretty low during rush hour.

Someone once quoted an anonymous transportation official (in TNR? years ago) saying "show me a man over 30 who takes the bus to work, and I'll show you one of life's losers". In my observations, that's pretty generally true even in the Bay Area, except on the Marin County buses.

BART works to an extent, because there is a significant concentration of jobs in downtown San Francisco and downtown Oakland (which is much better served than SF, despite fewer jobs), and some significant concentrations of population and easy freeway access to several BART stations.

To answer Nancy Lebovitz' question, BART runs trans as small as 4 or 5 cars during off-peak hours, and 10 car trains during rush hours. Trains run every 20 minutes per line off-off-peak, and every 5 minutes during rush hours.

Peter-
I'm curious as to where your information comes from? No commercial nuclear reactor outside of a CANDU plant provides 'bomb' production efficiencies. You might want to review India's first bomb for insights.

Peter:

You're absolutely full of it with respect to US nuclear power plant design.

By undergraduate education, I am a nuclear engineer. One of my undergraduate professors was called in as a consultant at Three Mile Island during the incident.

TMI was actually one of the best possible commercials for just how safe US nuke plants are. At TMI, things were so screwed up (pre-accident) that it literally was criminal; some of the folks "running" that plant IMO should have gone to jail. Valves were tied open (or closed - it's been 25+ years now) that should not have been; warnings signatures during the incident were either not recognized or ignored; and the incident itself was of a form (undetected slow leak resulting in significant gas buildup inside the reactor vessel) that no one ever expected to occur - and had thus never been modeled. In spite of all that, there was no release of unsafe levels of radiation; the design largely contained the problem, albeit with major damage; and there was never any serious danger of catestrophic meltdown.

The news media, of course, didn't tell you much of this. They were too busy listening to (and parroting) radical environmentalists furthering anti-nuclear agendas. Even then (1979), the media was far from objective when it came to matters nuclear. The only reason I know what happened is the fact that I was LUCKY enough to get first-hand reports of conditions and actions from an expert called in to consult during the incident - namely, the professor I mentioned above.

US commercial power plant design has NEVER been based on considerations of plutonimum produciton for resale to the government. The mix of Pu isotopes produced in a reactor run for power generation is not particularly suitable for bomb production. Due to neutron capture by Pu239, Pu produced in reactor run for power generation is too rich in Pu240, which leads to predetonation concerns (high rate of spontaneous fission) as well as high radioactivity levels (high alpha emission, if I remember correctly). That is why reactors run primarily for weapons-grade plutonium production are operated very differently than those used to generate power. They generally also have a very different design.

In short, the bottom line is that more people have died in TED KENNEDY'S CAR than in all US commercial power plant accidents to date.

I lived in Manhattan and now live in the Connecticut burbs. New York is great - if you are rich, as Megan correctly points out. I figure it takes a household income of at least $500,000 for a family of four to live comfortably in Manhattan. For the price of a 1500 SF, 2 BR apartment in New York with dicey public schools, you can buy a 3000 SF house on an acre or two with pretty good local schools in the Connecticut burbs. Of course, to live in Connecticut you need a car, actually a car per adult, because there is no other way to get from here to anywhere. You can't even ride a bike because the roads are all so narrow and twisty you take your life into your hands riding a bike on them. "Smart growth?" BS is what I call it.

Are there any experts out there who can tell us whether pebble bed technology will ever be commercially feasible?

anony-mouse:

I am an engineer by both education and profession, so I am quite familiar with the ideal gas law, the effects of compression on gas temperature, and the like.

My father was a professional mechanic, so I am also quite familiar with the operation of 2-stroke, 4-stroke, diesel, and some rather more exotic (turbine and jet) engines. Since as a boy I also helped him maintain vehicles in the carburator/points/condenser era, I'm also quite well aware of spark knock considerations in 4-stroke automotive engines.

Sources I have consulted indicate that propane has an ignition temperature in air of somewhere between 493C and 549C (920F to 1020F). Since we can easily run existing 4-stroke gasoline engine designs on propane with a carburator/fuel tank conversion kit and timing modificaitons, I don't think that hydrogen's substantially higher (585C) air ignition temperature would pose a problem. Indeed, this should make hydrogen significantly LESS prone to predetonation in 4-stroke engines than propane - which has, if I recall correctly, an octane rating of around 115. (Today's racing gasoline, as I recall, has an octane rating of around 100; premium gasoline, 91 to 93 depending on brand.) I'm sure you are aware of the implicaitons of octane rating regarding predetonation.

In short, from above I conclude hydrogen would have AT LEAST EQUAL AND POSSIBLY SUBSTANTIALLY BETTER anti-knock characteristics than propane - which in turn has significantly better anti-knock characteristics than most racing, let alone premium, gasolines.

Hydrogen permeability of plastics may or may not be a significant problem. I am well aware that gas permeability occurs and is directly related to molecule size. I have no idea whether or not hydrogen permeability is a significant problem with the plastics and/or metal alloys used in current automobiles. However, I must observe that there was a similar problem (leaching/erosion/embrittlement) regarding plastics used in automobile fuel systems in the 1980s when gasohols were first introduced. I believe these problems have been solved. I therefore believe the problem of hydrogen permeability is also solvable, at least under a car's hood.

The problem of hydrogen embrittlement of steel is, IMO, likely a non-issue in an automobile engine. Most intake manifolds are now aluminum, as are most heads. The only steel components that would encounter hydrogen are the cylinder walls (usually cast iron, actually), valves, and piston rings. These won't have continuous exposure to hydrogen gas, as a hydrogen gas mixture will only be in contact with these components about 1/2 of the time (compression and intake strokes). This should reduce dramatically the tendency for hydrogen diffusion into these iron/steel components. Moreover, automobile manifolds/heads/valves/combustion chambers/rings/cylinder walls also won't see pure hydrogen; they will see maybe a 10% or so mixture.

Distribution lines and tanks may or may not be a significant problem. These will indeed see a continuous and virtually 100% hydrogen concentration. This problem has been solved in the space program, which uses substantial quantities of hydrogen as fuel for shuttle and/or expendable rocket launches. I feel confident in asserting that, given the will and money to do so, these same problems could be solved for distribution fo hydrogen as fuel on a larger scale. One source I've seen leads me to believe that aluminum is between 1 and 2 orders of magnitude less permeable to hydrogen than is iron. (The same source also indicates that hydrogen is far less soluble in aluminum as well.) The use of aluminum lines, tanks, or tank liners for hydrogen transportaiton may therefore be a possibility.

In short: I think the potential problems you raise are eminently solvable. I also think that, due largely to anti-nuclear environmental wingnuts and the appalling technical illiteracy of the US populace, we will never see these solutions implemented in a widespread network.

IMO, that's really a pity. I guess we all need to be satisfied breating polluted air and producing unnecessarily high amounts of CO2.

In my post above re: Three Mile Island, I misspoke slightly due to haste. I wrote that "there was no release of unsafe levels of radiation." What I probably should have written was "there was no widespread contamination resulting in unsafe levels of radiation."

Radiation levels in parts of the TMI containment building were definitely unsafe after the incident. Radiation levels in populated areas outside the plant building weren't.

Dudes! Nobody here seems to know anything about dual-mode transport. Imagine a system where you have an electric car which you can reasonably drive around town on trips

It replaces light rail with something that encourages private investment in personal vehicles, and yet also has a mass-transit replacement for busses.

http://www.ruf.dk

There seems to be one thing missing in this lengthy discussion. Don't you have friends? The advantage number one in living in the city is that you can easily meet your pals, go to the bar and walk home. I don't know about US, but driving drunk is illegal and very frowned upon here.

Living in countryside or suburb would mean less options to choose the people you socialize with. Here are the neighbours, hang out with them or be alone. Of course you could move near to your pals in suburb, but what happens if you or they change in a way or another? No change to meet new people, you're alone again or forced to settle with suboptimal circle of friends.

Now when very few of people I know bother to have kids or settle to a boring adult life, the importance of friends increases. Urban single lifestyle is popular, and seems to increase its popularity. Young people move to cities. Of course there are some downsides, but do them make people choose otherwise and move to the suburb and breed? No way.

I feel confident in asserting that, given the will and money to do so, these same problems could be solved for distribution fo hydrogen as fuel on a larger scale.

Those are some collosal assumptions, particularly the money part, given that you seemed to even be speaking in terms of running hydrogen through natural gas networks. How many thousands of miles of pipes, processing equipment, tanks, and metering gear do you suppose would have to be dug up and/or upgraded? What of the associated economic disruption caused by road detours and temporary fuel shutoffs?

Given all the idealizing assumptions, including widespread nuclear power to supply electricity -- which, among other things, requires solving the waste disposal issues; see also, NIMBY, whose dictionary entry now has a picture of Yucca Mountain next to it -- then sure. Cheap and abundant hydrogen for all. (Albeit in that scenario the automotive world would probably be conquered by fuel cells rather than hydrogen ICEs; no point blowing away 70% of the process as heat when an alternative exists.) But even that doesn't solve the infrastructure problems, which would have to be upgraded to hydrogen-compatible apparati in fairly large chunks before being switched over.

Doable? Sure, in the same sense that personal hovercraft are doable; i.e., all necessary technology is present and available in some form, BUT the initial costs are very high, many viable transporation alternatives exist, and there isn't a pressing factor providing the market with an incentive to switch.

anony-mouse:

You're probably right about the economics. Any such transition would take years and would probably need to be driven either by govt action (legal mandate) or an economic event that pushed the price of most hydrocarbon fuels through the roof. I'm fairly sure neither will happen in my lifetime.

Again, in many ways that's a pity. I personally think the "carbon emissions are an immediate threat to the planet" crowd is out to lunch - but they could possibly be right. A hydrogen as fuel, using nuclear energy to produce the hydrogen, would avoid this possibility.

I do indeed have friends. Unfortunately, I also have a medical condition which prevents me from drinking. So they have a built in designated driver, if they need one . . .

interesting discussion...

it seems that raising the minimum mileage laws for automobiles (or just remove the anomaly of not considering SUV's as passenger cars) are the most straightforward way to improve things. hybrids are a real, currently feasible technology that definitely improve mileage, plus the parts associated with a hybrid will be needed for hydrogen cars.... motors, batteries, regenerative braking (which by the way is a big factor of the improved efficiency, especially in cities). raise the bar for all automakers, and hybrids will be out there right away (for a few k$ cost/car of course)

while we're at it, let's tax passenger vehicles for their net safety danger... a very insightful quantitative paper
www.scienceservingsociety.com/p/154.pdf

with regards to hydrogen... hydrogen embrittlement is a problem for all common engineering metals (don't judge any solution used on the space shuttle as practical for commercial vehicles), and a huge area of research. even bigger obstacle is hydrogen storage (best way to store hydrogen on a mass and volume basis is gasoline, i.e. C8H18). and the benefit of going to hydrogen is to use in a fuel cell (essentially a refillable battery), not to use it for a modification of current internal combustion engine. for home heating, there's not really any benefit for switching to hydrogen when natural gas is so much easier/cheaper/primary resource.

and when we talk of the problems commuting in nyc, let's remember the inherent problem of trying to commute to an island in the middle of a mighty river. not all cities share that inherent constraint of bridges/tunnels.

for source of cheap energy.... don't forget wind, and i happen to agree that next generation nuclear plants seem quite reasonable.

are you smoking crack?

seriously....

because according to your numbers, it costs 20 cents a mile? really, sign me up, because cars costs way more than that. you are looking about 73 cents a mile in detroit, just for the cost of car ownership over 4 years.

you dont even mention hybrid systems in your arguments, where you take the train and subscribe to a car pool service, which are really popular in seattle and DC.

you just seem to want to diss public transit, you don't mention how much energy it takes to run a train or a bus, or how economically any of those things are. where are your numbers? where are the numbers saying that taking a car everywhere is more efficient? or how new hybrid technology makes the bus way more efficient. or how flywheels will allow trains to capture the energy of braking?

Dr15:

I have friends, and I have a social life which does not revolve around consumption of alcohol, even though one of my weekly events is at a bar. Some events I go to where I meet friends involve spending the night, which makes getting drunk practical.

At least in California, there is pretty stiff enforcement, and social sanction, against drunk driving.

This article sounds like sensationlist bunk.
In Toronto, they buiilt an extention on the subway line first - Shepard Avenue extention - and the density followed. Individuated transportation creates negative returns at higher population levels.

dr15:

Speaking purely in practical terms, alcohol consumption is about the dumbest habbit anyone could take up, since it provides an easy, legally-accessible way to lose control of motor skills while sinking incredible amounts of money for the privilege.

That said, I prefer to enjoy alcohol consumption -- i.e., in moderation. A designated driver isn't required if you only have a couple drinks with dinner and spend another half hour conversing over coffee or ice water before paying the bill.

In Northern Europe there is kind of hysteria about drunk driving. Ever now and then someone demands (aggressively) sero tolerance, where driving with 0.01 promilles might get you straight into a jail. A limit of 0.2 is proposed regularly.

I see alcohol as a tool. People are naturally shy, being as loud as in bar environment during the weekdays would end you in trouble. Yet you don't like to waste your spare time acting contrary to how you feel. Booze helps, it moves the inhibition level appropriately.

But I think this is different with Americans. I believe they don't usually visit the nightlife regularly after some relatively low age.

Great article and love the comments. The dependence from gas and oil will never happen in my life. I think there is a lack of political willpower, both in the current administration and in the Congress, to fund research into alternative methods.

Oil companies are huge contributers to campaigns of both parties (I am a Democrat). I think once someone else (China? Brazil?) passes us, we will get our heads on straight. Until then, we will continue to fund our enemies here and abroad.

Three things:

1.) DR15, you made some great points.

2.) Why do so many people make the incorrect assumption that living in a city and having a yard are mutually exclusive? Most rowhouses in Center City Philly have small yards but they are tucked away behind the house so you dont see them from the street. Once you get outside Center City to areas like NE Philly and Roxborough, many houses have substantial yards, as big or bigger than some in the suburbs.

3.) Reading any kind of historical planning or history text will show you that, although preference does play a role, there were many transportation, housing, and zoning policies enacted in the last century by all levels of gov't that gave suburban development an edge over urban development. It wasn't just a coincidence that people moved out of cities, it was the result of our leaders policy decisions (to some extent, at least)

Reading over the posts I notice that nobody is discussing what will happen to American cities that do not have mass transit systems when the population doubles! Those of us who advocate smart growth are forward thinking and realize that the population is growing at an astounding rate, and that if we have policies in place today we can create the densities tomorrow for mass transit to work.

I would just like to advocate a brief pause for all of you involved in this discussion before you continue to electronically barbecue anyone who has an opinion different than yours.

As you take a breath, consider the following:

You only really know what you have experienced. I cannot pretend to know or be an expert on flight because I have been on one round-trip flight (3 legs each way). I can give a slight impression that I am an "expert public transportation user" because I commute from Milwaukee to Chicago every day for work, get around Milwaukee by bus (quite a difficult task thanks to Mr. Cox's opinion on Public Transportation), and set out on my feet where I cannot get to by transit. This, however, does not make me an expert in public transportation. I would have to get my Master's of Transportation Engineering and an MBA with graduate studies in Public Policy to even start the process of becoming an expert on public transportation. After that I would need 15-20 years of experience designing public transportation in all modes. Yes, highways are also considered public transportation. To summarize - when the NBA drafts a high-school grad we consider him a professional, and I think we are all too eager to do the same with all professions, no matter how dangerous the trend is. Consider the following definitions (All C/O Merriam Webster Online at www.m-w.com):

"Amateur: one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession; one lacking in experience and competence in an art or science"
"Expert: (adj) having, involving, or displaying special skill or knowledge derived from training or experience; (noun) one with the special skill or knowledge representing *mastery* of a particular subject"
"Professional: (adj) participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs"

My point is this: most of us are amateurs in everything, and only some of us are experts in something, but none of us is an expert in everything. On a personal vendetta, Wendell Cox has nothing but contempt for mass transportation (a more descriptive term than the PC “public transportation”) and favors the automobile until something else becomes cost-competitive with the automobile. Specialization in one part of a field does not make someone an expert in the entire field. I am an electrical power engineer and specialize in that field of construction, but that does not make me an expert in building design as a whole.

My wife drives the car by her choice and I avoid the car by my choice. It is a choice. I'm sure the point about the American Dream was that the real dream is not to choose a specific choice but to be free to choose whatever floats your boat. I personally believe that nothing can compensate me for the time I lose in transit between home and work except for how that time is spent. I value a relaxing ride with someone else safely behind the wheel, allowing me to let my mind wander, sleep, think, read, etc. I do not value the stress I feel when I spend hours stuck in traffic and unable to distract myself because to do so is dangerous.

Secondary point for all of you: we live in a capitalist democracy. We vote (democratic) with our money (capitalistic). Unfortunately, this puts us in an interesting position when it relates to housing density arguments. Real Estate costs will go high whenever someone votes them high by paying the high price. There may be expensive apartments in New York but they only sell for those prices because people are willing to pay those prices. Remember economics? It was the course that everyone hated except for the kid who sat next to you who became, well, an economist. The economists can tell you why someone is willing to pay $5 Million for an unfinished penthouse condominium in Chicago and another $2 Million to actually turn it into a place to live while someone else is willing to pay the same price for a 4000 square foot house on a 5 acre lot in Barrington (northwestern suburb of Chicago). This also explains why the same phenomenon was seen with both the railroad and the highways. Study a bit of history and notice that the population followed the rail lines from the cities. These rail lines both went west (To California) and spread out. The way the suburbs in Chicago first began to form was based on where the rail lines went. Then the automobile became popular and rail became the outcast. Population followed the highways to the new suburbs. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago called Crystal Lake…45 miles northwest of Chicago. There were farms, large lots, trees, parks, and good schools. There was also a train station that happens to bring over 1000 riders a day into Chicago for work/pleasure. Yes, it was in place before the automobile, but Metra keeps adding stations to its lines and is in the process of designing an outer circumferential line. Yes, a commuter rail line that serves only suburbs and not the city. One day something will come along that be the new kid on the block and will make the automobile the outcast. What then? I am not an expert so I cannot tell you. I can answer it with a question for you to ponder, though. Think through this when you try to argue the benefits of city versus suburb versus rural and mass transit vs. personal transit.

What is the most common advice of financial advisors to those who want their portfolios to grow? Two-fold: diversify your investments. When one is down, another will be high. Secondly, use dollar cost averaging. Continue to invest the same amount of money even when a particular investment becomes a loser. If you buy 2 shares for $100 when the price is $50, then you can buy 4 shares for the same amount when the price is $25. When the price goes back to $50, you have $300 in shares for an investment of $200. Of course, use common sense and get out of a company when it has no chance of coming back. But do not get out of a company just because it is in a rough spot. I am not a financial expert…and this just another opinion for you to hear and shoot down as you have everyone else. But I have hope, because all of you are a lot less fiery than other forums I have read. Kudos on having an ounce of decency and respect for others...its hard to find these days.

Jane, The only way your viewpoint can drive environmentally-concerned people crazy is if they are as biased and ill-informed as you. Keeping people ill-informed is one way to insure their discontent. Good job, (depending on how the word 'good' is defined).

The contemporary term "Smart Growth" is more related to governmental regulatory aspects of directing growth, rather than elemental development patterns.

I am offended by your use of the word 'penury' to describe what you believe will happen to the Middle Class if smart-growthers 'force' people out of their cars. Just the opposite is the case, if I may put it equally bluntly.

We drive too much, too far, for too many reasons. The amount of money spent on cars, roadways, parking infrastucture, oil production and distribution, manufacturing, purchasing, financing, insuring cars, time wasted driving, air and water pollution costs, Middle East-South American-African WARS for OIL, etc, etc, etc, reduce the budget kitty for more important costs of living, housing, healthcare, education, services, occupation, etc.

I take issue with the use of the word 'density'. Try substituting the word 'diversity' as the main driving principle behind 'New Urbanism'. Indeed, "density without diversity" does not reduce demand for long-distance travel. Adding housing to a housing district does not reduce distance between home and livelihood, occupation, shopping, medical and education facility, entertainment, dining, park and open space.

Try substituting the respectable word 'choice' for the word 'force', (as in providing choice), to describe the intentions of New Urbanists.

Your writing only lends credence to the perahps unreasonable fear that Libertarians want businesses in control of government, which some believe is fascism.

Would you be related to Adam or Erika Galt?

It is nice to see some well-thought pro-smart growth arguments.

The notion that smart growth "forces" a type of living is really not correct. Instead, smart growth attempts to remove the zoning policies enacted after 1920 that actually "forced" suburban development by isolating uses, ie residential, commercial, etc. Smart growth encourages the mixed use environment that had shaped this country until the mid 1900's when it was made illegal (it is a return to traditional development, whether it be in cities or suburbs).

Additionally, smart growth tries to reverse the subsidies that enabled automobiles to become such a dominant force by encouraging multiple forms of transportation (it also provides for the automobile).

I am a civil engineer/transporation/city planner so I feel that I speak with some authority on these issues. Whoever is involved in this dialouge, please read the basic tenents of smart growth (as published by Congress of New Urbanism, ie mixed use, AFFORDABLE HOUSING, walkable neighborhoods, transportation modal choices)before ripping into it.

And as for the "american dream" being a suburban house with a yard, etc., where everyone drives and nothing is in walking distance, does that imply that the "american dream" didnt exist before the 1900's? Because the type of suburban development that we see today is a relatively new phenomenon in light of our 300+ year history.

Everyone seems to be forgetting that this orgy of mass american energy consumption otherwise known as the american way of life (AWOL), is 100% dependant off the presence of CHEAP OIL.

Many prominent geologists and industry leaders have predicted that worldwide oil production is bound to peek within a few years, if not already.

America's suburban drive-in utopia is unsustainable and holds no future.

Everything about this wasteful lifestyle reeks of a total disregard for the realities of world energy supplies.

The days of living 30 miles from one's place of employment, and having to burn a gallon of gas to buy a quart of milk.

Smart Growth development is a responsible way of redesigning the places we live for the energy realities of the future.

The suburban dream is coming to an end, whether we like it or not. Many, I suspect will be dragged kicking and screaming.

Excellent discusison...

First of all, Manhattan is a very unique place, and every facet of your description of the smart growth lifestyle is really a discription of Manhattan, which even by 'smart growth' standards is by no means the ideal! So you really need to scrap that argument, it's got little or nothing to do with smart growth. No one is trying to re-create Manhattan.

Nonetheless, weather we want it or not, higher density is coming for most of us.

Here is an example of where we are headed if we don't immeditately start thinking about alternatives: LINK

This is Phoenix Arizona, probably the least dense city in the world, and this is a high density condo-plex in upscale Scottsdale. This type of development is very common and getting more common. THese things sell like hot-cakes, so it's obvious people demand them, and even in a place like Phoenix where land is still dirt cheap, this type of thing is becomming more and more common.

Is this smart growth? not at all, it's the worst of all worlds - a place where you're stacked together with less privacy and space, but where you're STILL totally dependent on the car to get anywhere.

The reason this type of development happens is due to a combination of poor zoning laws and myopic developers who are afraid to take risks.

As a libertarian, i'm sure you would appreciate relaxation of certain zoning laws to allow for more creative delelopment, but it's more about a culture where people just have no idea that other options exists. If we don't do something, we're really going to be in a mess with regards to infrastructure, transporation (car and otherwise) and sadly, what's left of our cities will indeed get priced into the statosphere - advice, buy land in Detroit.

BUT, there is hope:

Check out the following:

Village Homes, Davis CA: LINK
Milagro CoHousing, Tucson AZ: LINK

And for a few developments that are focused on non-car transit:

Fruitvale CA: LINK
Chicago Area: LINK

Look at the variety!

There are many examples of excellent, and successful, examples of what really is "SMART", just nowhere near enough!

Jim,

Wouldn't liquid ammonia be a better solution for hydrogen storage than gasoline?

Ammonia has a higher hydrogen content than does octane (17.65% vice 15.79%, esitmated using whole AMUs). While the density of automotive gasoline is higher (.737 g/cc for automotive gasoline vice .682 g/cc for liquid ammonia), my calculations show that liquid ammonia has more hydrogen per cc than does gasoline (.1204g/cc for liquid ammonia vice .1164g/cc for gasoline).

Yes, ammonia does require cooling for liquification. However, it can also be transported and/or stored as a liquid under pressure relatively easily.

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