First off, I want to apologize if this would be more appropriate for City Discussion - my assumption is that the City Discussion forum only pertains to Ohio.

 

Anyway. I read that NYTimes bestseller "Stumbling on Happiness" and the author made an interesting point. You know those old promo videos and cartoons like the Jetsons? Those were supposed to be the cities of the future. The point he was making, pertaining to happiness, is that the way we look at the future has everything to do with the way we feel in, and know about, the present. In fact, the Jetsons says more about the time period it was made in, than it did the future.

 

Oddly enough, it seems like today we're concerned with both historic preservation, the idea of streetcars/subways/trains i.e. nostalgia for a past that we weren't able to take part in (speaking for my generation who is probably the most enthusiastic about it). But then it's contrasted by green design - green rooftops, bike racks, squeezing the most out of materials that are bought locally/regionally, post-modernism, et. cetera.

 

I've been thinking a lot lately about how cities will be 50 years from now. The way we get around seems to have the biggest impact on urban form.

 

How will highways look in 50 or 100 years? Will they be gone? Will they have high speed rail occupying lanes or running along side them? Will restaurants or other businesses occupy the center like McDonalds does in Chicago? Will sidewalks move? Will we have a network of elevated rail lines containing pods that take individuals on their own route, coordinated by computers? (it would be a safe alternative to cars). Or will we have flying cars and what would the infrastructure be like for those?

 

Personally, what I'm wondering is..what if streets and highways themselves are rendered obsolete? Downtown streets would only be used by pedestrians. Technology continues to make materials and manufacturing cheaper, so I think it's in the realm of possibility.

 

Also, will government be more centralized? Will we be mostly city-county mergers? Will there be more public-private development corporations and will they increasingly give corporate leaders so much clout in city politics?

 

This is just a thread for any ideas about what the future of cities might look and act like.

 

Going back to the whole Jetsons/futuristic thing, I wonder what our present ideas about the future say about us now.

 

Discuss.

 

  Please see the Peak Oil forum if you haven't already.

 

  In the long term, say 100 to 300 years, our supply of hydrocarbon fuels, namely petroleum, coal, and natural gas, are likely to be substantially depleted.

 

  What happens then is anyone's guess, but I'd say you can forget about your flying cars.

I've seen the peak oil thread.

 

I agree about flying cars. There would be too much congestion in the air and a wreck would be disasterous.

 

    Conventional, gasoline-powered cars are likely to be extinct or nearly extinct in 100 years for lack of fuel. Same with aircraft and helicoptors.

 

    Electric cars and trains may operate for a while, but in the long term, say 300 years, even those will be obsolete for lack of fuel. Same with refrigerators, televisions, elevators, and anything you can think of that requires power. What this will do for cities is unimaginable.

 

 

 

   

There are renewable sources of energy. Nuclear, biofuels, hydrogen, wind, solar. They can all be channeled into a power grid. It's rather costly and nuclear power is dangerous at this point, but in 300 years it shouldn't be a problem.

 

 

 

    You are not taking into account AMOUNTS of potential energy. We do NOT have capacity to replace current hydrocarbon energy supplies with other sources of energy, Nuclear Fusion being a possible exception.

 

    The AMOUNTS of coal, petroleum, and natural gas that we are currently using for industrial power are so overwhelmingly large that solar, wind, biomass, etc, simply cannot replace them.

 

  Of course solar energy can be channeled into a power grid. The question is, can you do it on an industrial scale and come out ahead? The answer is, at this time you can not. Solar energy is not free. You have to build the collector. At this time, it costs more to build the collector than it does to buy an equivalent amount of energy in coal. Switching from coal to solar energy as a source of industrial power is a step down, not a step up. That is not to say that solar energy is not valid for certain applications, but solar energy cannot replace coal for our industrial power.

   

 

   

 

 

In the future, I'd suspect that power will be much more efficiently used, too though. I don't want to turn this into another doomsday thread. Lets be positive!

 

Btw..what is the origin of your screen name? Did you live or work in lower price hill or something?

Funny you post the PRT vid.  I was going to bring it up because we've been pushing for it in several projects that warrant it.  It definitely looks like a crazy futuristic idea at first, but I do see potential given a dense enough environment.

Funny you post the PRT vid. I was going to bring it up because we've been pushing for it in several projects that warrant it. It definitely looks like a crazy futuristic idea at first, but I do see potential given a dense enough environment.

 

I thought it was weird that they chose an office park environment for the promo video. I could see it being viable in urban cores of large cities. It would be costly but I'm sure it would spur much more economic development than a streetcar.

one of the most striking cities of the future was the imaginative deco era metropolis (1927)

 

 

the real deal 50's-60's version was brasilia

 

 

the 1990's future city was disney's celebration, florida

 

 

and.

 

thee upcoming future city

 

of the 'oughts is.... 

 

:wink:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't get too crazy looking into crystal balls.  My vision is obscured knowing that there are way too many competing technologies to see any particular one that's going to shape the future.  I would hope that we are in a renaissance of passenger rail transportation.  I think that future American cities will look closer akin to European cities.  Certainly the Northeast/New England will and perhaps the rest of the east coast.  What that says is that giving airports in the Northeast money to expand their airports to bring in more people from other local airports is a big waste of money.

U.L.T.R.A. looks and sounds an awful lot like a taxi system.  Except for the extra speed that grade separation allows, what benefit is their for all the incredibly expensive infrastructure it requires?

X, according to what I have read, ULTRA is quoted at around 15 million per unidirectional mile including the stations and vehicles. Light rail systems are apparently much more expensive yet have about the same capacity in terms of number of passengers that can be transported per hour. Infrastructure for the ULTRA's elevated track is narrower and the pods are lighter.

 

I guess it could mean not waiting for a ride, not having to drive, having a smooth ride, having privacy, getting to your destination faster, alleviating congestion, alleviating parking demand and providing a safer alternative to driving but I'm not a transportation planning guru - just what I would assume.

In the future, I'd suspect that power will be much more efficiently used, too though. I don't want to turn this into another doomsday thread. Lets be positive!

 

 

I'm not sure I understand how respecting the contraints placed upon us my Mother Nature is doomsday thinking. It's smart and responsible thinking. We can and should dream about the cities of the future, and those dreams are ultimately shaped by the limitations of imagination, available technology, climate, gravity, geology, financial capital and natural capital.

 

A little more than a half-century ago, we deviated dramatically from a 5,000-year history of how to design cities principally around pedestrians. Yes, it's true that 100 years ago we began designing the overall form of cities around radial lines streetcars and rail lines (from 100 miles up, cities looked more star-shaped as they spread outward along rail lines). But at the street level, the physical relation to the street and mixed-use form of buildings still looked much like they did hundreds of years earlier. They were ultimately pedestrian oriented since all streetcar and train trips began and ended as pedestrian trips.

 

So just a brief moment ago in the history of cities, we changed how we designed cities. Why? So the automakers could sell more cars. The titans of the auto industry were quoted in the 1930s as saying "Unless we redesign our cities, Americans will not have the full use of their cars." Then came Shell Oil's and GM's cities of tomorrow displays at the 1939 World's Fair.

 

And none of this would have been possible had America not been the largest producer of oil. For the next 50 years, our suburbia-based urban model with its car dominated circulation system continued to consume oil like there was no tomorrow. If we were dependent on others for oil (like Europe and Japan), I suspect our cities would have looked more like theirs.

 

Well, tomorrow arrived in 1970 as U.S. oil production peaked and we began importing oil for the first time. Like Europe and Japan, we started depending on others for oil. Our military increasingly was re-tasked from constraining communism to ensuring access to foreign oil sources and protecting oil shipments. This is not economically sustainable over the long-term. Thus, neither is the current form of American cities.

 

We had tremendous access to a wonderful source of energy that was incredibly cheap, incredibly energy-dense, accessible, portable and nondegradable. How could we not take advantage of this remarkable resource? But that party is over and it's time to be more responsible. That means redesigning our cities for the pedestrian again, but with some 21st-century twists, including hidden parking decks, high-capacity communication networks, mixed-income developments and more.

 

Our world and especially our nation has an "energy checkbook" with no overdraft protection. Whatever ideas we consider for the future design of cities cannot result in our energy account being overdrawn. That's not doomsday thinking. Natural resources are simply one of the biggest factors determining the urban form since recorded history began.

The reason there's interest in historic preservation, streetcars, is much more than just nostalgia. The best reason is that in the days of dense old neighborhoods and public transit, we had it right. Before the illusion of cheap oil, we understood that transit and density were no only the most economically efficient way to live, but also afforded a better quality of life.

 

The future will look more like the past, with green improvements.

 

Be a Retropolitan.

^----"I don't want to turn this into another doomsday thread. Lets be positive!"

 

    I'm not turning this into a doomsday thread. I am simply trying to steer it toward reality. Neither am I trying to look into a crystal ball. I didn't say that life would be worse, just very, very different.

 

    It is fair to say that, as a global civilization, we will have LESS industrial energy available to us in 300 year than we will today.

 

    That is not to say that there won't be any cars, or elevators, but that there will be FEWER of them, if any.

 

    We all know the history of how railroads and then motorways shaped our cities.

 

    What I expect is that those transportation routes will become LESS important, not more important.

 

    And how will we operate skyscrapers without elevators? Before elevators, most buildings were limited to about 6 stories based on climbing of staircases alone. Tall buildings are a recent invention, and they depend on electricity, which often comes from coal.

 

  But does the lack of industrial energy mean that we are going to be blasted back to the year 1700? Not necessarily. Certainly we have technology not available in 1700, and new discoveries are yet to be made. Time does not travel backward.

 

    At one time, I thought Cincinnati would have a population of 10 million in 300 years, and New York would have 100 million. Everything has been getting bigger, so why should that trend stop? That was before I understood the limits of natural resources. If I were to guess, I would say that cities will become SMALLER. This does not necessarily mean that life will become worse.

 

    My guesses for the long term are:

 

    Cars, trains, and airplanes, become extinct, or nearly so.

    World population declines to less than a billion.

    Global trade is scaled down.

    Skyscrapers are no longer viable.

    Transportation within cities is primarily by walking.

    Transportation between cities is slow.

 

    The industrial revolution is a one-time event. When coal, petroleum, and natural gas are depleted, the event is over. Again, the wild card is nuclear fusion.

 

 

Future City, Illinois

In the future, I'd suspect that power will be much more efficiently used, too though. I don't want to turn this into another doomsday thread. Lets be positive!

 

 

I'm not sure I understand how respecting the contraints placed upon us my Mother Nature is doomsday thinking.

 

Constraints in terms of fossil fuels that take thousands of years to develop..I can see that. But the source of all energy - even fossil fuels, is the sun and that's not going anywhere.

Constraints in terms of fossil fuels that take thousands of years to develop..I can see that. But the source of all energy - even fossil fuels, is the sun and that's not going anywhere.

 

It's true that fossil fuels are stored solar energy, but unless you believe the creationists, how about millions of years, not thousands of years?

 

Winds are created by solar heating, so I agree that all the energy we have, possibly with the exception of less-ubiquitously available geothermal energy, comes from the sun, but in just the past hundred years we've consumed solar energy that was accumulated over millions of years.

 

When we reach the point where we have to get by each day or week or month mostly on the amount of renewable energy that becomes available during that time period, we won't be able in any way to sustain the per capita levels of energy consumption that we practice now. The best outcome we can expect is a middle ground of fewer people with more modest individual expectations. With luck and more enlightened self-interest that humanity at large has yet demonstrated, we may reach that balance through rational planning and intelligent managment.

 

The alternatives are resource wars, environmental and climatic disasters, plagues and famine, and social chaos. As the disparity widens between the number of haves living well with plenty of food and comfort, and and the number of have-nots shivering and hungry, guess who will end up eating whom?

hows this one for timing? i saw it on drudge.

 

sounds like a serious health risk if these leak, but....the future is on the way even as we speak:

 

 

Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes

£13m shed-size reactors will be delivered by lorry

 

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

 

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

 

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. 'Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.'

 

Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. 'It's leapfrog technology,' he said.

 

The company plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. 'We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and we are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.'

 

The first confirmed order came from TES, a Czech infrastructure company specialising in water plants and power plants. 'They ordered six units and optioned a further 12. We are very sure of their capability to purchase,' said Deal. The first one, he said, would be installed in Romania. 'We now have a six-year waiting list. We are in talks with developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas.'

 

The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory. An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.

 

'You could never have a Chernobyl-type event - there are no moving parts,' said Deal. 'You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium. Temperature-wise it's too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands.'

 

Other companies are known to be designing micro-reactors. Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres. Designed to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer, they could power a single building for up to 40 years.

 

Just to frame this arguement properly. What we're talking about here is what's known in the field of Natural Resource Economics as the basic Pessimist Model and the basic Optimist Model.

 

The Basic Pessimist Model started with a study published in 1972 called The Limits of Growth and updated in 1992 under the title Beyond the Limits. They are both based on models developed at MIT by Jay Forrestor. This study reached three main conclusions:

 

1.) That within 100 years, with no major change in the physical, economic, or social relationships that we have, society will run out of nonrenewable natural resources. When this happens, a complete and sudden collapse of our economic system will occur. Manifested in massive unemployment, decreased food production and a decline in population.

2.) The second conclusion is that a traiditional piecemeal approach to solving this problem will not succeed. To illustrate this, the authors doubled the amount of known resources in the models and societal collapse still occured b/c of increased pollution driven by greater industrial devlopment. If they took out pollution, then food becomes the binding resource, and societal collapse still occurs.

3.) The third conclusion states that the only way we can stop this overshoot and collapse scenario was to immediately put limits on population and economic growth.

 

Julian Simon is the man who gave us the basic Optimist Model. He published a study in 1981 called The Ultimate Resource, rejecting the traditional overshoot and collapse scenario.

 

He brings up several good points in the study. One of which is that the overall amount of arable land is still increasing, and even in places where it's decreasing (US), technological innovation is still increasing productivity. Another, is that contrary to popular belief, natural resources have not become scarcer over time, any apparent lack has been due to problems with human behavior than to a physical lack of availability. Pollutions levels have declined as population and incomes increase in industrial societies. Furthermore, Simon points out that our economic and even our political systems respond to apparent scarcity in ways that minimize or eliminate its impact. A quote from his study:

 

"The main fuel to speed our progress is our stock of knowledge, and the brake is our lack of imagination. The ultimate resource is people - skilled, spirited and hopeful people who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit, and so, inevitably, for the benefit of us all"

 

One final point from me. Our view of the future is often clouded by our understanding of the past and present, as well as by our technology both present and right around the corner. Often, any projections we make of the future are limited by these factors, and can seem completely ridiculous in retrospect. Some example:

 

• In 1486 a committe established by the King and Queen of Spain to determine the feasibility of sending a ship to the Indies across the Atlantic determined that the ocean was probably infinite and not navigable. And even if it weren't, a return journey would be impossible
  
• In 1835, a british railroad engineer declared that any means of transportation at velocities exceeding 10mph was near impossible
  
• The chief geologist of the US Geological Survey in 1920 reported that only 7 billion barrels of oil remained to be recovered. His prediction: that we would be out of oil by 1934 at the current rate of consumption. In 1934, however, we had consumed nearly 12 billion barrels, and there was another 12 billion in proven reserves
  

 

My point is that history is riddled with these pessimistic projections and yet our race continues to grow and prosper. I'm definitely an adherant to the Optimist Model. We do have some real challenges to face in the near future, such as the availability of potable water in the developing world and even US west, and reaching peak oil will cause our society to completely transform itself....but we will continue to grow, both in economic wealth and population.

 

My take on future cities is they will probably look a lot like they do today, except more dense. I do believe the scarcity of oil will cause people to move back to city centers or first generation suburbs to be closer to transportation. Like somebody mentioned earlier in this thread, our cities will probably feel more European, or at least more like San Fran, New York or Chicago. I don't think we'll continue to see buildings get taller and taller. Regular skyscrapers like the kind we have in the US will stick around, but there's a point where the craziness that's going on in the middle east stops making economic sense (if it ever did). Only in the absolute densest and wealthiest places on earth will buildings continue to be built at such heights.

 

 

 

    Reality doesn't have to be pessimistic. In 300 years, we are likely to have fewer sources of industrial power available to us. That doesn't neccesarily mean that life will be worse than it is now, and it may not come as a sudden collapse.

 

  Also, solar energy is by far the largest source of energy, but it is not the largest source of INDUSTRIAL power. The best use of solar energy is to grow things. It is possible, but difficult, to use solar energy to power cars, power trains, refine steel, etc.

 

  "Natural resources have not become scarcer over time"

 

  Timber for shipbuilding? Silver nitrate for camera film? Light sweet crude petroleum for gasoline? Ivory for piano keys? Teak for ship decks? Rhinocerous horns for medicine? Anthracite coal? Buffalo for meat (In Ohio!)?

 

 

 

   

rek nice summary. i wouldn't phrase it that our cities will feel more european or like sf, ny or chi. i would say they will be more like most of them used to be before the 1940's!

  "Natural resources have not become scarcer over time"

 

  Timber for shipbuilding? Silver nitrate for camera film? Light sweet crude petroleum for gasoline? Ivory for piano keys? Teak for ship decks? Rhinocerous horns for medicine? Anthracite coal? Buffalo for meat (In Ohio!)?   

 

He meant natural resources, as a whole, have not become scarcer over time. Your examples prove his point exactly. Do we not have ships anymore? Did we stop taking picture b/c Silver Nitrate was too expensive? No more piano's?

 

The Optimistic Model argues that resources should be treated as infinite, at least in the economic sense. Here's why:

 

• Known reserves are uncertain. More may become available through discovery or new extraction techniques
  
• Resources may be used more efficiently, or recyling technology may catch up
  
• Equivalent resources/technology will come about. ie fiber optics instead of copper for communication
  

 

So that while we may run out of old growth timber for our boats, we'll still make boats. We still take pictures, now mostly with digital technology. Oh, and I just had a buffalo burger at Ruby Tuesdays  :wink:

 

Kind of came in late to this thread, but I've heard about a test run of the "pods on a track idea" done somewhere in Europe.  I personally think it's a great idea and technically functions both as mass transit and an independent vehicle.  Cities are expected to get a lot more crowded so a system that organizes and regulates mobility is definitely a solution, at the same time passengers are offered the option to break free if they need to travel somewhere remote.

 

I guess within at least the next 10 years, the only real changes we'll see are hopefully more light rail system and increasing options for non-motorized transit.

 

As for a more temporary fix for commuting issues....

I'll suspect AAC technology will develop into everyday existence within a few years where cars are regulated by computers within relation to one another.  Humans are awful controllers for vehicles.  In fact we brake on the highways when we really shouldn't.  It sends a huge compression wave backward that can halt traffic for no particular reason.  Since most cars on the road are ready to 'accept' this technology, implementation shouldn't be that monumental of a task.  The idea seems futuristic, but really it's been around for a very long time.

 

 

 

On historic preservation, remember that preservation is also being green.  It's putting old buildings back into use, or alternative use.  I think we'll see some innovations in building materials that will allow us to retrofit existing buildings into being environmentally friendly. 

 

I think nowadays our ideas of architecture have become so mixed.  Technology has always directed architecture, yet some would argue it's merely added more options to the types and styles of architecture we create.  I think the future will continue to bring a hodgepodge of buildings except the gap between new and old "styles" (I hate using that word in architecture) will grow a bit larger.  What I mean by this is you will see a lot of leading edge, contemporary design on one end, and more throwbacks of bygone eras on the other end.....and I actually think traditional design will improve in the future compared to the b.s. fake crap we have now.  I predict there will be radical contrast between these two and not a lot of structures in between.

Kind of came in late to this thread, but I've heard about a test run of the "pods on a track idea" done somewhere in Europe. I personally think it's a great idea and technically functions both as mass transit and an independent vehicle. Cities are expected to get a lot more crowded so a system that organizes and regulates mobility is definitely a solution, at the same time passengers are offered the option to break free if they need to travel somewhere remote.

 

Yeah, there's already one at London-Heathrow that was just built. WVU has a 1970s version. I think the only thing holding it back is regulatory issues and the fact that cities don't want to implement something without an existing model that has been proven to work in the same context. I think if Portland or some other city had a PRT in its core as opposed to an airport or university, more cities would take it into consideration.

Let me know how that fallout shelter you're building is coming along.

I believe that the US is the only country out of Japan and Europe to currently have a birthrate higher than the replacement rate and I think that is being supported by immigration and immigrants higher birthrates, too. My point being is the population problem for future cities here will not be too many people but rather competition for resources abroad.The population timebomb is in developing countries where technology has given just enough rope to hang themselves, so to speak. Advances in healthcare have lead to population explosion, but not enough resources to support such huge populations.

 

The problem that I have been trying to wrap my head around is how can a US city be as dense as it was say in the 20's when you have such dramatically smaller households?  I live in Lakewood, which is a "streetcar suburb" of Cleveland which was built out mostly from 1900 to 1930. Population peaked I believe sometime in the 60's  at around 70,000 to 75,000, the housing stock and occupancy rate has been for the most part static and it is believed that Lakewood will drop below 50,000 in the next census for the first time in nearly 100 years. How do we get more dense when people are having fewer children and for the most part later?

 

 

 

 

Yeah, there's already one at London-Heathrow that was just built. WVU has a 1970s version. I think the only thing holding it back is regulatory issues and the fact that cities don't want to implement something without an existing model that has been proven to work in the same context. I think if Portland or some other city had a PRT in its core as opposed to an airport or university, more cities would take it into consideration.

 

Another thing holding it back: Who's going to pay to build it? Highways are funded by gas tax, which is declining to the point that state a federal DOTs are in big trouble. This is something with a major cost and no formula to pay for it.

World population declines to less than a billion.

 

I do think we will see a nuclear holocaust in our lifetimes and it will be a war based on energy resources. I have near total faith that the United States will fail to redensify and live more efficiently. Far too many people are addicted to suburbia and cars. The changes we make will just be too little too late. This will lead to catastrophic economic failure. With a war monger president in the future, it's quite possible we'll start a major war with a resource-rich nation like Iran or Russia. We'll want Russia's oil, coal, and natural gas reserves. Retaliation will be total destruction and death of everyone in the United States (and many countries in the world). But I don't think we have to worry for at least another 10 or 20 years. And because of this, we won't do much to change our ways. We talk a big talk, but very rarely do we walk it. With increased reliance on our industrial-military complex, increased sprawl and transportation/energy costs (yes, we are still increasing our per capita land use), and increased desperation, the United States could easily start the war to end all wars. Iraq was probably the first step, but we'll half-ass fix that. People may forgive us, but they'll never forget. So the next time we f$&k up, there will be no mercy, particularly if we go after a country that has a legitimate military (especially air force and navy) and any sort of missile delivery system. We'll get hit at home, and we'll get hit hard. The only reason we attacked Iraq is because it's an easy target with no defense. For long-term energy security, Russia makes far more sense, but we know the consequence of that, but who knows, maybe we'll just be too desperate to stop ourselves? Or maybe the defense industry lobbying and propaganda interests will be too great?

 

As I see it, we’ve got maybe two decades to completely change the way we live. Historically, the United States only changes its ways through mass violence (Civil War for example) and through corporate propaganda/lobbying (the whole obsession with oil, cars, and wars against communists). We cannot let that happen again. I do fear we’ll either destroy ourselves through civil war or a country like Russia or China will do it for us.

 

If we used the per capita energy consumption of New York City, we wouldn't even be having this discussion, but most of America lives like Columbus or Indianapolis, not New York. :|

 

You've got a point. Corporate propaganda (mostly through TV) is responsible for a disgustingly disproportionate percentage of decision making. No logical person would make the decision to live an SUV/McMansion/isolated/consumption-oriented lifestyle without years of constant inundation by some major force. The only way people will cut back on piggery is through years of the same kind of marketing blitz afforded to consumption. But where's the money in that? This is capitalism (always the best system), so the only other way to enlighten people is to hit them in the pocketbook so hard that they have few chances to be pigs. 

 

 

Yeah, there's already one at London-Heathrow that was just built. WVU has a 1970s version. I think the only thing holding it back is regulatory issues and the fact that cities don't want to implement something without an existing model that has been proven to work in the same context. I think if Portland or some other city had a PRT in its core as opposed to an airport or university, more cities would take it into consideration.

 

Another thing holding it back: Who's going to pay to build it? Highways are funded by gas tax, which is declining to the point that state a federal DOTs are in big trouble. This is something with a major cost and no formula to pay for it.

 

Public and private fianancing. Light rail and streetcars are being built - there's no reason why PRT couldn't be, when estimates are in the same ballpark. One advantage streetcars have is that I think funding for maintenance on the streetcar tracks come from the same source as roads. With PRT you're talking about infrastructure on a different grade.