[URBAN NOTE] "The Mismatch Between Population and Mass Transit In the San Francisco Bay Area"

[rfmcdpei]

Geocurrents' Martin Lewis has a post up that takes a look at population density in the San Francisco Bay Area and its intersections with mass transit. I thought it worthwhile to highlight it given the critical importance of population density in debates on transit in the Greater Toronto Area.

A sound urban system, environmentalists now argue, is

Comments

[robby]

People like suburban life, houses with yards, and space between neighbors. Who wants to be crushed together like rats, to satisfy some enviromentalist's vision of high density efficiency?

[mmcirvin]

If that were universally true, rents would be low in center cities. But they're not; they're sky-high, and the real estate there tends to be fabulously expensive, with house prices dropping off in distant ring suburbs. That suggests to me that somebody does want to live in high-density areas, though not everybody does

[robby]

The article seemed to promote high-density blocks of housing surrounding suburban train stations. I'd like to see a future shift to nuclear power, with plenty of hydrogen generated to power internal combustion vehicles. Some of these environmentalists seem to want to limit us, when we presently have the technology to instead provide a high standard of living.

[mmcirvin]

I really like the Do The Math blog's summary of the energy situation

[mindstalk]

And as I referred to last night, a lot of that area is greener to live in in a sense, what with a nice climate that doesn't need lots of A/C. So when they're kept out, people are forced to browner areas.