5 Myths About Suburbia and Our Car-Happy Culture

[2dsdad]

<p><a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/2xxcyy[/url]”>http://■■■■■■■.com/2xxcyy&lt;/a&gt;
WaPO 1/28/07

They don’t rate up there with cancer and al-Qaeda – at least not yet – but suburban sprawl and automobiles are rapidly acquiring a reputation as scourges of modern American society. Sprawl, goes the typical indictment, devours open space, exacerbates global warming and causes pollution, social alienation and even obesity. And cars are the evil co-conspirator – the driving force, so to speak, behind sprawl.</p>

<p>Yet the anti-suburbs culture has also fostered many myths about sprawl and driving, a few of which deserve to be reconsidered

Nice counterpoint to the usual doom and gloom.</p>

[mommusic]

<p>Some good points. You mean all those bike-riders in Asia would rather own cars and plan to as soon as they can afford them? Who knew.</p>

<p>And while it is true that America is not close to being paved over, anyone who has driven I-95 between Boston and Washington knows it is mostly a long, narrow parking lot.</p>

<p>But stopping off for a latte on the way to work doesn’t really count for combining errands, in my book. A generation ago the driver would have just had coffee at home, and the road to work would not have had countless traffic lights which exist only to service the tacky plazas full of $tarbucks & Micky Ds where drivers stop for breakfast. Sigh.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>*Americans are addicted to driving.</p>

<p>Actually, Americans aren’t addicted to their cars any more than office workers are addicted to their computers. Both items are merely tools that allow people to accomplish tasks faster and more conveniently*</p>

<p>Actually- you can get many of those errands done online or do without- pretty neat huh?
but is that what people are doing? not when rush hour starts at 5am-and is pretty steady till 8 pm.</p>

<p>*.Public transit can reduce traffic congestion.
Indeed, commuters are now increasingly likely to travel from one suburb to another *</p>

<p>True- but that is just spreading the congestion around so it is pretty constant between suburbs as the roads were not designed for high density commuting- but for back and forth to the “city” .</p>

<p>In Portland- workers have doubled their usage of bikes as a mode of transportation to work in the last 5 years- Seattles is inceasing but although I know several who bike to work over to the suburbs via the Burke Gilman trail, I think you would be taking your life into your hands if you attempted to ride a bike from Redmond to Issaquah- heck with all the supersize SUVs overthere you are taking your life into your hands if you drive a tiny car.</p>

<p>*We’re paving over America.</p>

<p>How much of the United States is developed/*</p>

<p>

The United States loses more than 18,000 acres of coastal wetlands every year. In some areas, such as along the California coast, 75 percent of the wetlands have been destroyed, bringing the term “endangered” to many wetland-dependent species. Wetland loss is common in all parts of the country… a trend that must be reversed.

</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>5.We can’t deal with global warming unless we stop driving</p>

<p>

Who wants to guess how much gasoline is used in the United States every year?</p>

<p>The total is about 140 billion gallons – enough to fill a tank one-half mile wide, one-half mile long and one-half mile high.</p>

<p>There are good reasons for cutting that consumption. Motor gasoline accounts for almost half of our nation’s oil consumption. About 60 percent of the oil that we use comes from other countries.

<a href=“http://www.rep.org/opinions/speeches/68.html[/url]”>http://www.rep.org/opinions/speeches/68.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Loss of wetlands- isn’t just loss of habitat- it affects pollination- which affects the food supply and it affects potable water, something that is more important to our survival than if we have oil for our cars</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.scidev.net/ms/biofacts/index.cfm?pageid=422[/url]”>http://www.scidev.net/ms/biofacts/index.cfm?pageid=422&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;