"Over the next two decades, however, streetcar lines either were bought up and then closed down by automobile companies or simply went bankrupt."
Ah, America.
Ah, America.
The article is about the "General Motors streetcar conspiracy"; the link jumps to the section where other factors in the decline of streetcars are discussed.
Sure, there were a few rail lines running across the country, but building the nations highway system, plus the luxury of the general population to own cars really allowed people to travel the country for business and pleasure. Without the automobile the country wouldn't have been as well connected and arguably wouldn't have became what it did.
Nobody wants to build street lights or a subway station in the middle of an Iowa corn field, but reasonable infrastructure where people actually live is important.
PS: America seems to have forgotten that infrastructure drives economic development. From dirt roads to high speed internet society's live and die based on past investments not what happens to rich or powerful people.
Should people who live in that corn field pay for a rail system in DC?
>PS: America seems to have forgotten that infrastructure drives economic development. From dirt roads to high speed internet society's live and die based on past investments not what happens to rich or powerful people.
Infrastructure that make sense enables economic development. But not all infrastructure makes economic sense. Sure, you can stimulate economic growth in a place by pouring a bunch of money into it. But how much growth did you suppress in other places by taking money out?
Or how about: Between 1995 and 2011, the federal government paid $172.3 billion in commodity subsidies, $46.6 billion in crop insurance subsidies, $37 billion in conservation subsidies and $21.4 billion in disaster subsidies.
Compare with the much hated bank/auto bailout which cost a net $21bn.
Really, rural areas should love for city's to become more efficient so they can leach even more money from them.
By the same token, regional and city-wide projects should built by the people who are going to benefit. There's no reason I should have had to pay for Boston's Big Dig, for example.
Yes. The same way people living in DC pay for all the interstates they don't use next to corn fields.