cross-posted from: https://sullen.social/post/59233
Really great description of the american sprawl. These issues eat away my soul every single day, and this guy wrote about it in 1973.
Some of my favorite excerpts:
The invention of the personal automobile, and destruction of public transportation, was a triumph of capitalist drug-peddling; suddenly, all at once, everyone’s personal mobility became dependent on a single, new commodity, gasoline. Without it, we are unable to function, since urban sprawl and suburbanization now means we can’t even walk to work if we wanted to.
“The typical American devotes more than 1500 hours a year (which is 30 hours a week, or 4 hours a day, including Sundays) to his [or her] car. This includes the time spent behind the wheel, both in motion and stopped, the hours of work to pay for it and to pay for gas, tires, tolls, insurance, tickets, and taxes .Thus it takes this American 1500 hours to go 6000 miles (in the course of a year). Three and a half miles take him (or her) one hour. In countries that do not have a transportation industry, people travel at exactly this speed on foot, with the added advantage that they can go wherever they want and aren’t restricted to asphalt roads.”
You’ll observe that automobile capitalism has thought of everything. Just when the car is killing the car, it arranges for the alternatives to disappear, thus making the car compulsory. So first the capitalist state allowed the rail connections between the cities and the surrounding countryside to fall to pieces, and then it did away with them.
These splintered cities are strung out along empty streets lined with identical developments; and their urban landscape (a desert) says, “These streets are made for driving as quickly as possible from work to home and vice versa. You go through here, you don’t live here. At the end of the workday everyone ought to stay at home, and anyone found on the street after nightfall should be considered suspect of plotting evil.” In some American cities the act of strolling in the streets at night is grounds for suspicion of a crime.
No means of fast transportation and escape will ever compensate for the vexation of living in an uninhabitable city in which no one feels at home or the irritation of only going into the city to work or, on the other hand, to be alone and sleep.
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The original French essay is available here.
After reading article I came up with better metaphor illustrating limited resources.
“Tragedy of common light bulb”:
Imagine village where electrical energy is a scarce resource. There is no possible way of building new or expanding power plants. However good news is generated power is not yet used by anyone. Currently everyone, no matter social status uses candles as their light source. Richest use fancy candles and dont bother to snuff them when they dont occupy room. Middle class uses casual plain candles and saves them. Poorest use sparingly low quality scraps not meeting quality standards as they leave production line.
One day genius engineer invents a light bulb, which shines brighter than any candle. Richest citizen is astonished when he sees it and buys it for a lot of money. Sky gets dark. Other rich see bright glow from mansion of richest. Next day they go to engineer which sells them new contraption. Next night everyone knows about new tech. At day new factory line opens and higher class lines up in front of it. Engineer works hard to meet up with new demand. In the evening people screw in their light bulbs and discover they are not as bright as night before but they are ok with that. Early in the morning genius engineer discovers new material and immediately implements it in his factory. Price drops dramatically. Masses line up in front of factory. Light bulb is no longer luxury product and becomes commodity affordable for middle class. When engineer calls it a day after long hours people crowded in queue are so desperate that they decide to wait for next day and go to sleep in front of factory. Sun sets and masses turn on their light bulbs. Everyone is shocked as they discover village’s power grid is too weak to handle so many users. Every lamp, no matter social status of owner, is barely emitting any light and in fact is as dark as candles used before engineer’s invention.
Now translating this story into our reality: light bulb means automobile, candles are means of transport used before automobile and limited electrical power symbolizes scarce space on cities streets.
Excellent article
