Cleveland Renaissance?

[Shovel ready]

[i] Any policy trying to force people into living/working/shopping habits they don't want is also doomed to failure. [/B]

This is assuming we gleefuly glide through a future of cheap transport fuel and limitless automobile suburb growth..Probably not gonna happen.

Mother nature has a way of setting policies far more effectively than any government body could ever dream of.

As of now, the word's 4 largest easy-oil reserves have entered a state of terminal decline. Overpopulated countries like India and China are trying to live up to their own version of the American Dream by putting autos in more and more of its people's hands.

There is a fixed supply of oil in the world and greedy people are sucking the stuff out of the ground even faster, with greater efficiency. We may have reached the halfway point (Peak) where half the world's oil is already gone.

As nations scramble and fight over the rest of the half empty glasses's contents, prices will surge and wars will ensue.

Americans, who accout for only six percent of the world's population, suck up 25 percent of the world's oil. Even President Bush, the other night in his SOU speech admited we have a serious oil addiction problem.

Our foreign policy proves will will fight to the death to keep the people living this irresponsible and ecologically destructive lifestyle of mandatory motoring and wasteful consumption, driving 50 miles a day to and form work, and burning a gallon of gas to go buy a gallon of milk. People would rather pee in their seats trapped in highway gridlock than take a bus or train.

Are Americans really happier living this lifestyle of being "freed from the contraints of fixed transit lines." A major obesity epidemic, unparalelled depression and anxiety and a general feeling of alienation from greater society paints a far different picture. We are not happier detached and subdivided, and wrecking the planet at the same time. All of this so Americans can give the middle finger to any collective responsiblity to make "lifestyle" sacrifices to doing anything for the common good of humanity.

Mother nature can be a conniving b1tch.

[biker]

Originally posted by Linda_D

This is a real, and growing, problem in this country because in addition to the millions of people who are middle aged or older who have been cut out of manufacturing jobs, there are large numbers of young people who do not understand -- or refuse to accept -- the fact that without a college degree or some kind of special training to get a skill, they are locked out of about 90+% of the jobs that pay a living wage. A lot of these young people come from homes where their parents didn't go to college, either, and don't offer much incentive for them to get more education to better themselves.

Then, my dear, the only hope for them is for us to build a really strong wall and hope hunger can teach them how to pick lettuce and tomatoes.

[biker]

My Mom was a junior high school teacher in a city school district.

Several times I offered to come to one of her assemblies. I would urge them to not study and stay dumb. Because industry needed good strong backs with few alternatives but the dirty, dangerous jobs that they would have no choice but to accept.

That was back in the early eighties.

I wouldn't make her the offer anymore.

Because those jobs largely don't exist any more.

And neither does the need for the morons to do them.

[Linda_D]

Gabe, your urbanist utopia where everyone lives in apartments crammed into multistory buildings within a short walk or bus ride to work in one central business district and shops at trendy locally-owned stores is never going to happen in most of this country, and especially not in Buffalo! Maybe a growing, crowded metro area can sustain your utopia, but certainly not an area with a stagnant or dropping population.

Why do businesses have to huddle in high rises in one central business district? Technology's changed since the 1890s when telephones, manual typewriters, and that new-fangled electricity were "cutting edge". In twenty years, many office workers may not have to come into work more than once a week or month.

Why does mass transit have to always funnel into one central business district? Why can't there be a line that loops around Sheridan Drive and Maple/Brighton? Why not Union Road or Transit lines from Williamsville to West Seneca? The NFTA would do this if there was a demand for it. They've created two new bus loop routes for the Buff State/North Buffalo shopping areas in the last few years.

Why do you doubt that in 20 years Americans could be driving biofueled or electric cars? People all over the world, not just in the US, want the freedom offered by the automobile, so it's not like the US oil industry will be able to stifle research on alternate fuel cars. If American manufacturers don't move forward, then the Europeans and/or Asians will. More than likely, all the car manufacturers will be involved because they face their own demise otherwise. The internal combustion engine may die, but the automobile will survive. Count on it.

[biker]

Yipes, Gabe!

Remember, I'm the guy who was gonna take the subway to the "Cars on Main St." gabfest.

I am with Linda on this.

Probably because we've been through one cycle of environmental gloom and doom. Ever read much Paul Ehrlich? I did. Thought it was great. Most of it didn't happen.

David Ricardo gave economics the (unwarranted) moniker as the "gloomy profession" with his predictions as to how the world's population would outstrip the food supply. By about 1842, IIRC.

Obviously there has to be change in order for these cesspools we call cities to survive. I don't think large numbers of people moving in is going to be one of them.

Now, when are you visionary planner types going to point out a path for cities to take in order to gracefully downsize. As opposed to the (not so) benign neglect that is shaping so many of them now?

[moonshine]

Gabe,

I give your triple-gainer-backflip off the ten meter platform a "10". I'm not sure how you were able to fit that much doom and gloom into so few paragraphs.

Here's a long but level-headed analysis of oil and the myth of peak oil.

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1717

[Shovel ready]

Originally posted by Linda_D
Gabe, your urbanist utopia where everyone lives in apartments crammed into multistory buildings within a short walk or bus ride to work in one central business district and shops at trendy locally-owned stores is never going to happen in most of this country, and especially not in Buffalo! Maybe a growing, crowded metro area can sustain your utopia, but certainly not an area with a stagnant or dropping population.

Cities like Buffalo suceeded urbanistically being a city primarily of detached houses on lawns, not multistory tenement buildings.

And whether or not the Buffalo region will always be shrinking, remains to be seen. The winter weather is sure getting nicer up here and it will only be a matter of time that the SW desert boomtowns literally start drying up when their scarce water resources run dry.

Originally posted by Linda_D
Why do businesses have to huddle in high rises in one central business district? Technology's changed since the 1890s when telephones, manual typewriters, and that new-fangled electricity were "cutting edge". In twenty years, many office workers may not have to come into work more than once a week or month.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Linda_D
[B]Ask cities like New York, Chicago, London, and Toronto. They still do it and it works quite well. Concentration of office jobs in a walkable central core means mass transit lines can fan out from this small area to all sorts of far-flung neighborhoods/suburbs. People can live in their peaceful, green suburb and still get to their jobs in the central core without the nightmare of being stuck in traffic and fouling up the air by driving all by themselves in a massive hunk of steel meant to transport 5+ people.

Originally posted by Linda_D
Why does mass transit have to always funnel into one central business district? Why can't there be a line that loops around Sheridan Drive and Maple/Brighton? Why not Union Road or Transit lines from Williamsville to West Seneca?

Would you really want to take a bus from Williamsville to West Seneca and scurry across roads with 6 lanes of speeding traffic goint 50 mph??

Mass transit only works when you have significant density on at least one end of the trip. If a bus drops you off at the corner of Transit and Maple, chances are your actual destination is not within reasonable walking distance, due to that type of area being so spread out.

However, Let's say there is a park and ride for a train at this same location. It takes only 5 mins to drive to this station from your home. The train takes you to your job downtown in 15 mins. Everything downtown is clustered so densely together that most offices are within a 7 minute walk of where you exit the train. This density means less of a need to accomodate cars, creating streets friendlier to pedestrians.

Let's say all those suburban office park jobs were to magically teleport to downtown office buildings and let;'s say there were 5 metro rail lines, each fanning out from downtown to city neighborhoods suburbs in each direction. Most people in the area would concievably have the ability to quickly get downtown without having to drive there (assuming there is a train station within a 5 min drive of most suburbanities or a short walk or drive for most city dwellers). Retail could once again flourish downtown considering rapid transit would provide stress free accesibility and a good number of people may choose to live in the urban core (downtown or a close-in city neighborhood) to be close to work and enjoy the lifestyle amenities of city living.

See Linda, what my vision is, is TRASPORTATION CHOICE AND DIVERSITY, NOT telling people where to live. I want a system where people can live in any sort of living environment they desire and have a diversity of ways of getting around. I may want to live in the urban core and be able to run errands and have access to employment without having to use a car. That is my personal lifestyle preference. I respect just as much the person who wants to live in a low-density setting and get around by car (or drive to the park and ride and take a train into the city if they wish).

See, in cities completely dominated by car uses, those who don't drive are completely disenfranchised.

Originally posted by Linda_D
Why do you doubt that in 20 years Americans could be driving biofueled or electric cars? People all over the world, not just in the US, want the freedom offered by the automobile, so it's not like the US oil industry will be able to stifle research on alternate fuel cars. If American manufacturers don't move forward, then the Europeans and/or Asians will. More than likely, all the car manufacturers will be involved because they face their own demise otherwise. The internal combustion engine may die, but the automobile will survive. Count on it.

What people want and what people get are two different things. I don't doubt for one second that personal cars will still prevalent around in the future. However, thinking that simply another energy source will step in and totally replace oil, and let us contiune to rely on cars for everything is foolish. No other fuel on earth offers the energy density contained in oil. The energy it takes to extract the stuff from the earth and bring it to market is far outweighed by the sheer energy released when it's burned.

Ok, so you want to power all your cars on electricty. Where does this electricity come from? Energy simplydoesn't exist in a vacuum. Something must be burned or a turbine/motor must be turned to generate the juice.

Solar and wind reliablity is variable upon weather conditions. The amount of energy it would take to build enough wind turbines and solar panels to produce anything near the amount of electricty needed to run the way things are now is unimaginable. Much of our electricty today comes from coal and natural gas fired plants. Reliability of future nat. gas supplies are being called into just as much doubt as petrol. North America is already starting to run short. There are larger supplies overseas but this must be liquified and stuffed in sea tankers to transport. These tankers require alot of diesel fuel to operate.

More nuke plants may become a necessity, but we all know the hazards and popular opposition associated with this option.

Biofuels like modified veggie oil and corn ethanol will require millions upon million of acres of crops to be dedicated to fueling our joybuggies. With Americans voracious driving habits, there is no way this will work, without us starving to death first. (I'm sure there are quite a few Americans who will feed their cars before their own bodies).

Instead of us living the mandatory-motoring autotopia that defines the status quo today, I picture cars as being much smaller, short range electric vehicles used for specialized errands and for delivery vehicles. Also don't forget motorcyles and scooters (there ya go biker!!, looks like the future ain' so bad afterall!!), they only require only a fraction of the energy our big cars guzzle. One people are forced (by mother nature, not evil planners!) back on their feet and onto trains/trollys, the needs for personal vehicles will become much less significant.

Also note that big skyscraper-laden cities are just as energy hungry as carburbs. Their own survival in current form is debatable.

I picture many people returning to small cities and the countryside.

Who knows, maybe a city the size of Jamestown will become a wonderful little urbanist utopia =)

[Shovel ready]

Originally posted by biker
Yipes, Gabe!

Remember, I'm the guy who was gonna take the subway to the "Cars on Main St." gabfest.

I am with Linda on this.

Probably because we've been through one cycle of environmental gloom and doom. Ever read much Paul Ehrlich? I did. Thought it was great. Most of it didn't happen.

David Ricardo gave economics the (unwarranted) moniker as the "gloomy profession" with his predictions as to how the world's population would outstrip the food supply. By about 1842, IIRC.

Obviously there has to be change in order for these cesspools we call cities to survive. I don't think large numbers of people moving in is going to be one of them.

Now, when are you visionary planner types going to point out a path for cities to take in order to gracefully downsize. As opposed to the (not so) benign neglect that is shaping so many of them now?

Hey now biker, as I said above, in my future bikes will still work just fine. You might like it there.

I, like you, am a firm believer in downsizing cities. However, I see them shrinking down into more compact, sustainable little places. Maybe one day, the Fruit Belt will grow alot of yummy fruit again.

[Shovel ready]

Originally posted by moonshine
Gabe,

I give your triple-gainer-backflip off the ten meter platform a "10". I'm not sure how you were able to fit that much doom and gloom into so few paragraphs.

Here's a long but level-headed analysis of oil and the myth of peak oil.

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1717

What was so doom and gloom about that first reply of mine? Is maybe having to do some walking on your own two feet such a horrible punishment to look forward to in the future??

Oh, and that link was quite interesting by the way. It didn't really contest too many of the things I was saying, just sort of downplayed some of the doomier scenarious i've seen around the interwebs.

Instead of really debunking the concept of peak oil, he spells out the oil situation in more realistic terms. He does acknowledge that EASY OIL may soon be in shorter supply due to spiked demand and he is highly skeptical about alternatives filling the shoes of the easy-to-extract light sweet crude.

Sure, there are alternatives. There are huge bitumen deposits in Venezuela and Alberta, tar sands that combined hold more than twice the current estimated world reserves of liquid crude oil. But bitumen is costly to refine, a potential environmental nightmare to extract, and right now, only a tiny fraction of the crude in either the Athabasca oil sands or the Orinoco Belt can be recovered.

There's a lot of shale in North America, and the process to synthesize crude from shale is fairly old and well known. It is also water intensive, and not terribly economical right now (because most of the shale is buried out West, where there is very little water). The technology is pretty well established to make synthetic crude oil from coal (lots of North American coal too) or natural gas, or even turkey guts or pig manure – if the price is right.

But none of that matters, because while synthetic crude, whether made from bitumen or natural gas, makes great diesel fuel, kerosene and fuel oil (some buses in Washington, D.C., for example, are powered by diesel synthesized from natural gas), it tends to make really lousy gasoline. Or very little gasoline. And I cannot emphasize enough – right now, gasoline is what everyone wants. Gasoline is what makes the world go round.

See how he clearly spells out how dependant upon gasoline the world is.
But the biggest fields yielding the stuff is now reportedly in terminal decline:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/26/9229/79300

Look, even the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell admits Peak Oil
http://www.energybulletin.net/12327.html

[biker]

I knew the future of US energy independence lay with a massive increase in bikers.

But I didn't want to scare you with the truth.

You can't handle the truth.

[biker]

Gabe:

There are some very explicit, extra costs in your seemingly-innocuous view of an alternative future:

See Linda, what my vision is, is TRASPORTATION CHOICE AND DIVERSITY, NOT telling people where to live.

Your alternative of several train lines radiating out from the city would cost hundreds of millions to build.

There are costs associated with auto travel. But they are paid for by the individual motorist. He buys the car. The cost of fuel pays for the the network of gas stations. Gasoline taxes pay for the highways. Hell, this is such a money font, it even pays for some mass transit.

Except for gearheads, the attraction of cars is freedom. Freedom to go where you want, when you want. Not subject to someone else's schedule.

If they didn't cost so damn much, there'd be more subways and train lines for people to use.

[Linda_D]

Originally posted by Gabe
Biofuels like modified veggie oil and corn ethanol will require millions upon million of acres of crops to be dedicated to fueling our joybuggies. With Americans voracious driving habits, there is no way this will work, without us starving to death first. (I'm sure there are quite a few Americans who will feed their cars before their own bodies).

Gabe, this statement indicates that you don't comprehend the productivity of modern agriculture. The problem with food production isn't that modern agriculture can't feed the world and have plenty left over for biofuel production, it's with the ability of countries with food shortages to purchase and distribute food to their people.

Millions of acres of prime crop land from Ohio to eastern Nebraska sits fallow because there are no markets for the corn it could produce. In the mid-South and South, there are millions more acres that are currently dedicated to tobacco or were formerly in cotton or tobacco and are now fallow that could also be turned to corn production. In there's a biofuel plant being built in the western Mohawk Valley that will convert higher fiber vegetation -- grasses primarily but possibly shrublike materials -- into biofuel. This opens the door for millions of acres of New York and New England's abandoned farmlands to become productive again -- and bring a measure of prosperity back to the rural areas -- because hay's a lot cheaper and easier to grow in our climate and terrain. (Since my brothers and I own some excellent hay growing land in Cattaraugus County, I keep track of this kind of news.)

One more thing. Biofuels don't necessarily have to "go it alone" as a fuel. Ethanol and gasoline can be mixed, and in fact, that's what is being marketed now, which means that today's auto engines can accept that. So, if all gasoline sold in the US were 15 or 20% ethanol, that would reduce US gasoline consumption 15% or 20% right off the top without modifying technology.

[moonshine]

Isn't the topic of biofuel dead on arrival as it requires more energy to produce the fuel than the fuel provides?

[biker]

I've heard that too, Moonshine.

The whole ethanol thing is also confusing. Linda's lament notwithstanding, ethanol is secretly subsidiazed in ways that fold back upon themselves.

Ethanol is exempt from all or portions of the taxes assessed at the pump. ("Of course, the 'butter-wouldn't-melt-in-their-mouth' crowd says; ethanol isn't gasoline".) Corn production---despite the millions of fallow acres---is subject to national price supports of $1.80 per bushel. Ethanol gets a break in this, too.

All I know is govt distorts the workings of the market.

If price supports and tariffs were removed, poor third world farmers would be competitive in our markets and we'd have cheaper foods. Put in a retraining program for the displaced farmers. If national food security was threatened, it's a pretty fast job to restart it.

Let the oil be used till it's gone. The market will gradually reprice it. Let's stop pussyfooting around about being dependent on the Middle East. Either accept it or blow them all away and steal their oil.

We get accused of it anyway.

[Shovel ready]

Originally posted by moonshine
Isn't the topic of biofuel dead on arrival as it requires more energy to produce the fuel than the fuel provides?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that.

Also hydrogren is the other big farce. It takes more energy to produce this "fuel" from natural gas than the net energy yielded from it.