When you combine this trend with the growing number of two-job households, and the decline in average tenure at a job, it's clear that automobility is a necessary component of American prosperity.

No, it's clear that mobility is a necessary component. The basis of that infrastructure is irrelevant to prosperity.

When you combine this trend with the growing number of two-job households, and the decline in average tenure at a job, it's clear that automobility is a necessary component of American prosperity. People are looking for nice homes, nice schools, and nice yards where they can create stable lives, irrespective of where they are working.

It's hard for us New Yorkers to see this, because New York is such a centripetal city. I think it's true of New York and very few other places in the US that workers can build an entire career in a business district as compact as 30th to 60th Streets, 3rd to 8th Avenues.

If you have to drive until you qualify that is not a status symbol.

It's just a really long drive.

There are counter-arguments, of course, but Pisarski's message is one we ignore at our own peril. At a minimum, he helps us better understand the challenges of transitioning to a less auto-dependent world.

Of course, he'll probably say we're all hippies and liberals and don't represent America (see the McCain campaign tactics for definition of "real" Americans).

In the 1970s, large tracts in inner city slums like the South Bronx were abandoned. In the next few decades, some of the sprawl slums could be abandoned and restored as farmland or parks. The abandoned areas would be much larger, because density is so much lower.

Add in the fact that world population is expected to peak in the 2050s and then to start declining. By the end of this century, large areas of sprawl could be abandoned and revert to open space.

What you said. The people with the guts to take that stand -- in favor of the free market, equity or anything else -- are few and far between. Here is someone who has, and has also had the intellectual integrety to accept the evidence of government power harming rather than helping the worse off.

http://www.anthonydowns.com/

The man. Read provocative thoughts 4 and 5.

http://www.anthonydowns.com/provocative.htm

Now consider this -- many suburbs now have a housing stock that is passing 50 years old, the age at which many neigborhoods in central cities were passed down to the poor, often after being divided into rooming houses by their newly absentee owners. And there is excess supply of excessively large housing in the exurbs, with their new McMansions (not so much in the NY area).

Many of these homes are being purchased by speculators in foreclosure, those speculators are going to run into big trouble cash flowing them as one-unit rentals, and expectations of price appreciation are not likely to be met in real dollars at least. So what will desperate investors, and former owners who want to move away and cannot sell, do? And who will stop them.

Massive, massive issue coming, and I'm happy to live in a place where I can sit it out.

In reality, for the past 60 years, most localities have had zoning laws that make it illegal to build anything except low-density sprawl. He should be attacking these suburban zoning laws as a barrier to freedom of choice.

He forgets that non car-drivers spend our money locally instead of sending it off to insurance companies and car loan companies. We still spend money, just differently.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30810275/

"Most demographic and market indicators suggest that growth and development across the country are moving away from the suburban and exurban fringe and toward center-cities and close-in suburbs."

"What's behind this shift? Empty-nesters don't need the big house and don't want to mow the big lawn. High gas prices are making long commutes less practical. The urban renaissance in big cities ranging from New York to Portland, Ore. — and the revival of charming, vibrant downtowns in small cities like Missoula, Mont. — is making the bedroom suburb and the strip mall seem positively dull."

Now consider this: this trend is emerging despite state and local fiscal arrangements that force city dwellers to fund a greater share of the burden of the poor, and past debts and pensions that divert their high tax payments away from services. In reality, virtually all the disadvantages of urban living are governmental. As in the massive retreat from decent public schools in NYC to pay for the massively costly 25/55 pension enhancement for teachers passed just last year (though no one bothers to connect the dots).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/nyregion/20schools.html

What would the market choice be if tax/public service considerations were neutral?