Americans Drive Less, Creating a Problem

[Darth Wong]

It simply makes very little economic or technological sense to create your "sky cities" with out other factors necessitating it.

Wrong. Urban living is far more environmentally and economically sustainable than highly dispersed suburban living. The most efficient society would be one of highly built-up urban cities for residence and industry, and vast factory-farm operations for agriculture in the rural areas.

The reason our cities sprawl is social, not economic or technological. People want to have their own plot of land, and their own green lawn. Do you honestly not understand why it is more efficient to have five hundred people in a single apartment building than to have five hundred suburban houses, each with its own separate utility hookups and its own plot of land?

[Ekiqa]

Your rebuttal would be more appropriate if Ekiqa had argued for non-drivers paying nothing to support the road system. Instead, Ekiqa only argued for non-drivers paying less, ie- "should not have to pay the same level". Which is entirely reasonable, since it is pretty hard to justify the argument that there is no difference at all between the benefits a driver and a non-driver get from the road system.

I think that there are too many individual variables for each road user/benefits-from-road-use person, to make a blanket statement that a person who may not himself drive, owes the system less than a person who does drive.

For example, on any given day I owe my ability to conveniently reach my job, to the presence of the road system. On any given day, some number of diabetics who don't drive, owe their lives to the availability of the road system.

Why should I directly pay for roads and especially highways? I personally do not own a vehicle, yet the taxes being taken off of my meagre pay are supporting the highways.

Medications can be mailed or delivered to your house, trips to the doctor or hospital could be done by transit or taxi. Taxis pay for gas, to pay for the roads, as do delivery vehicles, buses and postal vans.

If you dont want the gas tax to go up, I support the tolling of all major highways. With the electronic toll systems, you do not interupt the flow of traffic at all.

[Stormbringer]

I am saying the only viable solution we can have is find a way to increase the usage of electic cars and ensure pollution is curb to a certain extend. ( Am I making more sense now?). After noticing the respond, it might not be viable as well.

Your goals, reducing pollution and it's sources, is one that makes sense. It's that you're both hyper focused on one area and are not even terribly well informed about that area. You're also being unrealistically extreme in your views, which is simply not helping your case at all.

If there is no major energy issues concerning the fact that spreading means we will require more use of cars and vechicles, I would say feel free to live apart.

There is a problem with spreading out due to the rising cost and consumption of energy.

As people have pointed out above, spreading out means public transportation will be less viable and the demand for car ownership will increase.

Ray, no one is arguing with you that it makes more sense long term to try and reduce suburban and exurban sprawl. Nor are people arguing with you that improving and expanding mass transit, improving access to less costly means of long distance travel, and generally reducing pollution are desirable things. The issue is you're trying to take those to an extreme dictated more by ideology than reality allows. We're not going to eliminate the desirability, and to an extent the necessity, of personal transportation. The kind of urban densities required for it to be entirely dispensed with are impractical in the extreme for reasons which you are seemingly unaware and indifferent.

If you're genuinely interested in the topic, start looking at the more realistic plans for reducing suburban sprawl and the logical reduction in the need for personal transportation on a day to day basis. I assure you that there is a wealth of information on that topic and you'll get a much better understanding the issues actually in play.

[KrauserKrauser]

Your rebuttal would be more appropriate if Ekiqa had argued for non-drivers paying nothing to support the road system. Instead, Ekiqa only argued for non-drivers paying less, ie- "should not have to pay the same level". Which is entirely reasonable, since it is pretty hard to justify the argument that there is no difference at all between the benefits a driver and a non-driver get from the road system.

I think that there are too many individual variables for each road user/benefits-from-road-use person, to make a blanket statement that a person who may not himself drive, owes the system less than a person who does drive.

For example, on any given day I owe my ability to conveniently reach my job, to the presence of the road system. On any given day, some number of diabetics who don't drive, owe their lives to the availability of the road system.

Why should I directly pay for roads and especially highways? I personally do not own a vehicle, yet the taxes being taken off of my meagre pay are supporting the highways.

Medications can be mailed or delivered to your house, trips to the doctor or hospital could be done by transit or taxi. Taxis pay for gas, to pay for the roads, as do delivery vehicles, buses and postal vans.

If you dont want the gas tax to go up, I support the tolling of all major highways. With the electronic toll systems, you do not interupt the flow of traffic at all.

Why should I pay for unemployment, I don't need it.

Why should I pay for Disable Veterans, I am neither a Veteran nor Disabled.

Why should I pay for welfare, I have a job.

Why should I pay for mental health programs, I'm not that crazy.

Why should I pay for the USPS, I ship everything UPS and use email.

Why should I pay for farm subsidies, no one pays me not to farm.

And yet, I benefit for paying into all of these programs. Believing that you not owning a car means you shouldn't have to pay into the system is retarded. You clearly benfit from this system as if nothing else it improves the flow of commerce, thus enriching the economy. Does your job in no way depend on people being able to drive to do something?

[Broomstick]

Firstly, one of my major weakness is due to the fact that I am too idealistic, and idealism without grasping on to reality is a very dangerous thing.

I'm not going to argue with that. I also suggest you try travel to a part of the world different than Singapore to broaden your horizons. I understand that your thinking is heavily influenced by your location and upbringing, but really, you do need to learn a little more about the world.

If it is so hard to get to a local store and etc, then simply don't live in those areas. Grant economic benefit from tax cuts to housing grant to encourage people to leave from those isolated pocket of community in the US to the cities. (BTW, I know the CCP manage to move large amount of people from the rural areas to the city areas, does anyone has any idea how they accomplish it without a huge social outcry? Like granting people economic benefits and so on?)

Ray, large urban areas are utterly and completely dependent on resources obtained from non-urban areas. Efficient agriculture - necessary to feed cities - is not compatible with high-density populations. The area of Nevada my friend was posted to was largely agricultural, with the remainder Native American reservation lands. We have to have people living in agricultural areas in order to produce food. Likewise, fishing is usually most efficiently done using harbors based near various fisheries, which may or may not be located adjacent to large urban concentrations.

Moving Native Americans is a whole other issue which I will NOT sidetrack this thread into, suffice to say wars have been fought over the issue in North America so accomplishing it would require more than writing a few checks to relocate people and shut them up.

In addition, mines tend to be located in remote areas, and we need mines to get the steel with which to build skycrapers, not to mention all the other metals our civilization uses.

Petroleum extraction also occurs in remote areas. Alaska, for example, is a major source of North American petroleum and depends on remote outposts to extract and transport it.

Canada has also been extracting petroleum and natural gas from it's northern regions, and, oh yeah, there's those diamond mines up north, too, which don't provide just pretty rocks for jewelry but also industrial diamonds.

Don't occupy the land for the sake of occupying the land, something that is a major flaw among humanity as a whole. Living in isolated pockets on the earth is something that should be left to us as a holiday event.

Then who will farm? Who will fish? Who will mine? Who will maintain and staff those holiday event locations?

Ray, civilization demands SOME people live outside the cities, otherwise the cities will no longer be supplied with food and raw materials.

I wish I could park your ass in an airplane and take you flying over the Great Plains of the US so you could see just how much fucking land area is required to feed the US, much less the entire world. I don't think you understand just how much space is required for the food that winds up on your table.

People living in remote areas, even if you limited those numbers to just the bare few required (which is questionable social policy at best), will require personal transportation. There will never be mass transit to wheat farms and orchards, much less mines and oil wells.

[Darth Wong]

Your rebuttal would be more appropriate if Ekiqa had argued for non-drivers paying nothing to support the road system. Instead, Ekiqa only argued for non-drivers paying less, ie- "should not have to pay the same level". Which is entirely reasonable, since it is pretty hard to justify the argument that there is no difference at all between the benefits a driver and a non-driver get from the road system.

I think that there are too many individual variables for each road user/benefits-from-road-use person, to make a blanket statement that a person who may not himself drive, owes the system less than a person who does drive.

For example, on any given day I owe my ability to conveniently reach my job, to the presence of the road system. On any given day, some number of diabetics who don't drive, owe their lives to the availability of the road system.

Don't be ridiculous; laws are not specially crafted to every individual person's unique situation; they have to look at people in groups and consider them as aggregates.

Why should I directly pay for roads and especially highways? I personally do not own a vehicle, yet the taxes being taken off of my meagre pay are supporting the highways.

How do you think the food gets to your grocery store? By magic? How do you think the telephone system is maintained? Men on foot or bicycle? How do you think the sewer system is maintained? Donkeys pulling wagons full of maintenance equipment? You are part of society, and as such, you bear partial responsibility for anything which is a critical part of that fabric. Disavowing responsibility just because you think you don't personally use it is just as selfish, stupid, and irresponsible as people who don't want to pay into local public schools because they don't have kids.

Medications can be mailed or delivered to your house, trips to the doctor or hospital could be done by transit or taxi. Taxis pay for gas, to pay for the roads, as do delivery vehicles, buses and postal vans.

And the cost of mail is affected by the road system. The cost of hospitals is affected by the road system. It is impossible to extricate the cost of the modern road system from goods and services today. Every time you buy a goddamned sandwich at the local restaurant, it is affected by the road system. You owe a responsibility to pay for the upkeep of that system. The biggest difference between you and somebody who drives 50 miles a day is that he puts even more demands on it than you do, but don't kid yourself into thinking you live independently of it.

[Stormbringer]

Wrong. Urban living is far more environmentally and economically sustainable than highly dispersed suburban living. The most efficient society would be one of highly built-up urban cities for residence and industry, and vast factory-farm operations for agriculture in the rural areas.

I'm not arguing that the typical suburban single family house with an expansive lawn is more efficient. In fact, as I said, it's incredibly expensive and unhealthy for society and am in favor of taking action to roll back the excessive sprawl that's become the norm. What I am arguing with Ray that building cities up to the level of places like Singapore, Hong Kong, or other super-dense cities is that it brings with it very significant problems of it's own which make them less than desirable.

The reason our cities sprawl is social, not economic or technological. People want to have their own plot of land, and their own green lawn. Do you honestly not understand why it is more efficient to have five hundred people in a single apartment building than to have five hundred suburban houses, each with its own separate utility hookups and its own plot of land?

Actually, I do and that's one reason I'm in favor of seeing that kind of excess rolled back via the change in policy which subsidizes that plan of development. But if you'd paid attention to my previous posts, you'd know that.

[Darth Wong]

Wrong. Urban living is far more environmentally and economically sustainable than highly dispersed suburban living. The most efficient society would be one of highly built-up urban cities for residence and industry, and vast factory-farm operations for agriculture in the rural areas.

I'm not arguing that the typical suburban single family house with an expansive lawn is more efficient. In fact, as I said, it's incredibly expensive and unhealthy for society and am in favor of taking action to roll back the excessive sprawl that's become the norm. What I am arguing with Ray that building cities up to the level of places like Singapore, Hong Kong, or other super-dense cities is that it brings with it very significant problems of it's own which make them less than desirable.

That statement is meaningless in the context of this argument unless they are so undesirable that they are actually worse than the urban sprawl.

The reason our cities sprawl is social, not economic or technological. People want to have their own plot of land, and their own green lawn. Do you honestly not understand why it is more efficient to have five hundred people in a single apartment building than to have five hundred suburban houses, each with its own separate utility hookups and its own plot of land?

Actually, I do and that's one reason I'm in favor of seeing that kind of excess rolled back via the change in policy which subsidizes that plan of development. But if you'd paid attention to my previous posts, you'd know that.

Oh I'm sorry; did I forget to post the announcement where I said that it's OK to say something that is blatantly, comically false as long as you've contradicted yourself elsewhere?

[Broomstick]

Why should I directly pay for roads and especially highways? I personally do not own a vehicle, yet the taxes being taken off of my meagre pay are supporting the highways.

Unless you can tell me with a straight face you never use anything that has traveled by road then you benefit from the road system. The goods in your local stores, as just one example, traveled there in part or entirely by road.

I agree that if you don't own a car you can argue that you should pay less - here in the US there are road taxes on fuel, so if you don't drive you don't pay the fuel tax and thus are less burdened. Indirectly, you do pay for fuel tax for transporting items you purchase, but since you are presumably benefiting from that purchase you have no grounds to object.

Medications can be mailed or delivered to your house

How the hell do those items get to your house without going by road? (Well, part of the way may be by air frieght, but then you get into taxes to support aviation...)

[Stormbringer]

Oh I'm sorry; did I forget to post the announcement where I said that it's OK to say something that is blatantly, comically false as long as you've contradicted yourself elsewhere?

Or perhaps you're just caught in having made an assumption and consequently misread what I have actually been arguing.

What you seem to fundamentally miss is that while population concentration is a good thing, there is also an upper limit at which it becomes extremely cost prohibitive to further increase that density. That's one nuance of the argument that you seem to be persistently missing and that's your problem, not mine.

[matus1976]

Ray425: Ideally, I would really hope that people would just live in those sky cities and etc, and give up on the idea of suburbs altogether if your population don't need so much land. Then proceed to link those cities together using trains and etc.

If it weren't for totalitarian zoning laws, this would mostly be the case all ready. We would have dense population centers separated by sparse wilderness and probably some high speed transit between them.

Other than that, can anyone tell me why people stop building cities as a whole?

In the US, basically because it's become illegal. The tallest building to go up in the state of Connecticut in the last few decades is the new hotel for an Indian casino, which does not have to abide by local zoning regulations.
http://www.ctrivervalley.com/images-pic ... -IN-CT.jpg
Surrounded by towns that won't let you build more than 3 stories, it stands out like a metaphorical middle finger at moronic zoning laws.

Don't occupy the land for the sake of occupying the land, something that is a major flaw among humanity as a whole. Living in isolated pockets on the earth is something that should be left to us as a holiday event.

If cities were not confined by arbitrary zoning laws, far more people would live in them and they would be much less expensive to inhabit and fewer people would live in rural areas. I certainly do not however share your desire to force or tell other people how or where to live.

[Mayabird]

In Ray's defense (little as there is), it IS possible for more rural, outlying U.S. counties to have public transit systems of some kind, so long as the people really, really want it, because most counties of Washington state (even the rural ones) manage to pull it off.

A few off the top of my head:
Mason County Transit: The county has less than 50,000 scattered across it, its county seat has a whole 8000 people, mostly working in the lumber and geoduck industries, and it is nearly bisected by Hood Canal (not a canal). It doesn't even cost anything to ride the buses within the county, only for the rides outside the county (mostly to Bremerton; the bus goes to the ferry terminal so people can ride the ferry into Seattle).

Island Transit: Yes, Island County is a series of islands, and they manage a bus system. They don't charge fares at all.

San Juan Transit: An even more remote series of islands that got made its own county.

Jefferson Transit: A whole 26,000 people, and it's not even possible to cross the county lengthwise because the interior of it is the most rugged part of the Olympic Mountains (also it's a national park).

Clallam Transit: Yes, they have a real city (Port Angeles, pop 18,000, which has a ferry to Canada) and a population of about 65,000 across this county (which is the entire northern section of the Olympic Peninsula). What's really impressive, though, is that they manage to run buses to all the places where the population is concentrated enough for the location to get a name, like Sequim, Clallum Bay, Forks (yes, where that teen vampire series is based, with its population of 4000 people!), Sappho (I think it has five buildings) and Neah Bay (at the Makah Nation/Reservation at the very westernmost tip).

Me? I often ride the Kitsap Transit buses since I live here, and I've taken the Foot Ferry (a cute little boat) quite a number of times too. Of course, Kitsap County has quite a bigger population than many counties in this state (over 200k, with a city of over 40,000, plus the rich commuter suburb of Seattle called Bainbridge Island) and two major naval bases.

Of course there are limitations: the buses are usually paid for by sales tax (Kitsap Transit gets 80% of its funding that way, and sales tax revenues are down a LOT now), and there usually aren't many routes, some areas don't get bus service at all, and hours can be limited (the bus only goes by my apartment once per hour). But it CAN be done.

[Darth Wong]

Oh I'm sorry; did I forget to post the announcement where I said that it's OK to say something that is blatantly, comically false as long as you've contradicted yourself elsewhere?

Or perhaps you're just caught in having made an assumption and consequently misread what I have actually been arguing.

What you seem to fundamentally miss is that while population concentration is a good thing, there is also an upper limit at which it becomes extremely cost prohibitive to further increase that density. That's one nuance of the argument that you seem to be persistently missing and that's your problem, not mine.

Two things:

1) You generalized about sky cities, ie- all highly built-up areas.

2) You have made no attempt to show what this limit it. The only real limit is dictated by the cost of constructing extremely tall buildings due to structural limits, and the REALLY tall buildings are almost universally built due to reasons of cultural vanity, not urban population density. Hong Kong, despite having the world's highest population density, does not have its tallest or most expensive buildings. In other words, you're still blowing smoke.

[Ekiqa]

I said I did not want to DIRECTLY pay for roads.

As I pointed out with examples, I do not mind paying the cost indirectly, through something I use, such as transit, or a taxi, or the food I eat.

The delivery companies can and always have passed on the costs to the consumer. I have no problem with that, because I am USING the road system that way. I do NOT want to pay for roads through income taxes, property taxes, and any other tax, other than gas taxes.

[KrauserKrauser]

Well bully for you. I don't want to pay my income tax towards leeching welfare recipients but alas life is not fair.

You DIRECTLY BENEFIT from the road system, why should have to not DIRECTLY PAY FOR IT?

[Stormbringer]

1) You generalized about sky cities, ie- all highly built-up areas.

Gee, no shit.

2) You have made no attempt to show what this limit it. The only real limit is dictated by the cost of constructing extremely tall buildings due to structural limits, and the REALLY tall buildings are almost universally built due to reasons of cultural vanity, not urban population density. Hong Kong, despite having the world's highest population density, does not have its tallest or most expensive buildings. In other words, you're still blowing smoke.

Because the cost:benefit issue is not a fixed one and thus there is no single number.

And yes, one of the major limitation is the cost of simply building the structural. There's also life safety, property acquisition, increased life safety demands, and the sheer cost of construction for high rise buildings. All of these first costs have a huge ripple effect on down to housing prices and rents, insurance, and the costs of maintenance all of which have effects on cost of living. As you say, the tallest buildings are not built for practical reasons but vanity; they're also often relatively poor economic performers.

However, Ray is trying to insist that the model of Singapore should be followed in other areas which lack the land area constraints which make extensive high rise development viable in the first place. Even the major cities of North America like New York or Chicago tend to have limited high rise development and a lot more development of the medium density sort. Mid-rise apartments (often with business space below) are fairly common in those cities and smaller ones because the accrue most of the enviromental and economic benefits of scale with out incurring the significant costs of engineering, life safety demands, and increased construction costs of major high rises.

[Broomstick]

I think I'm starting to side with Ekiqa - if he's willing to accept the indirect costs of roads through the cost of goods and services that use those roads then I can see where he doesn't want additional taxes to support private driving when he doesn't drive himself. He is not directly using the roads in the same way a car owner does when driving on those roads. I think a gas tax to cover road building and maintenance is entirely appropriate as your contribution will be proportional to the amount of driving you, personally, do. You can opt out entirely if you're willing to accept some trade-offs while still indirectly supporting indirect use of the roads, such as mail and transport of goods. If you want to drive, well, you will then pay more but you will also be using the system more.

That is quite different than taxing your income to subsidize welfare payments, which is a direct cost on you for (at best) indirect benefits to you as a member of society.

[Darth Wong]

1) You generalized about sky cities, ie- all highly built-up areas.

Gee, no shit.

You seem to be blissfully unaware that this makes you guilty of precisely what I accused you of: generalizing about highly built-up urban areas when in fact your argument only pertains to a very specific kind of construction that is not universal or necessary to them.

2) You have made no attempt to show what this limit it. The only real limit is dictated by the cost of constructing extremely tall buildings due to structural limits, and the REALLY tall buildings are almost universally built due to reasons of cultural vanity, not urban population density. Hong Kong, despite having the world's highest population density, does not have its tallest or most expensive buildings. In other words, you're still blowing smoke.

Because the cost:benefit issue is not a fixed one and thus there is no single number.

And yes, one of the major limitation is the cost of simply building the structural. There's also life safety, property acquisition, increased life safety demands, and the sheer cost of construction for high rise buildings. All of these first costs have a huge ripple effect on down to housing prices and rents, insurance, and the costs of maintenance all of which have effects on cost of living. As you say, the tallest buildings are not built for practical reasons but vanity; they're also often relatively poor economic performers.

You seem to have missed the point that the tallest buildings are therefore irrelevant to this discussion, which is about concentration of residential population, not super-expensive vanity buildings which, more often than not, are actually for businesses or civic/national pride rather than residence.

However, Ray is trying to insist that the model of Singapore should be followed in other areas which lack the land area constraints which make extensive high rise development viable in the first place. Even the major cities of North America like New York or Chicago tend to have limited high rise development and a lot more development of the medium density sort. Mid-rise apartments (often with business space below) are fairly common in those cities and smaller ones because the accrue most of the enviromental and economic benefits of scale with out incurring the significant costs of engineering, life safety demands, and increased construction costs of major high rises.

At no point does this argument rely on every city being exactly like Singapore in every way; it only requires that they incorporate a much higher population concentration, which can be easily done using apartment buildings that are nowhere near as tall as the gargantuan vanity penis compensators that you're talking about.

In short, your red-herring is getting old.

[KrauserKrauser]

I still think it is retarded. Instead of paying the same amount in taxes, he just wants to pay even more as it will go from him to company to taxes instead of simply him to taxes.

[matus1976]

You are joking. It's very expensive to live in a city.

This is primarily because rent control laws and zoning laws prevent cities from building enough habitable area to satisfy the demand of the people who want to live in those cities. In general, dense populations can live more effeciently and less expensively. The most obvious is that they can utilize public transportation systems.

But consider 1,000 people, for example, living in the same building. If in this building each person had a 10m x 10m apartment, 3m tall, this would be about 1,000 sf. If the building was 50m wide and deep (enough for 5 apartments) and 40 stories tall, it would house all 1,000 people with a total surface area exposed to the outside of about 26,500 m^2. If each of those 1,000 people, however, had their own small building, 10m x 10m and 3m tall, it would expose 220,000 m^2 to the outside, almost 10 times as much! Obviously, the more volume you have per surface area the better off you are.

Add into that the mechanical, wires, plumbing, data, etc, not to mention the economies of scale which come into play with larger heating and cooling systems, and the advantages larger structures can make of differentials in pressure and temperatures throughout the structure, and it becomes an even more efficient and advantageous living situation. Lets assume each person needs 1 pipe going to their apartment, in a building, we could easily imagine a vertical pipe extending the length of the building and providing that service to each room it intersects with. Thus in our building, with a top down surface area of 50m^2, made up of 5 apartments x 5 apartments, will have 25 pipes extending through it. At a height of 120 meters, that's about 2,500 meters of pipes.

Now we take our 1,000 people in there 10m x 10m houses, add some zoning restrictions which says their lots have to have at least 10m of empty space all around, and you have a 30m x 30m lot with 1 10m x 10m house. An area 1km on either side would be enough to cover all 1,000 lots. If all these houses were in a perfect grid, we would have 100 rows of houses that are 1 km long, which means we would need about 100 kilometers of pipes! 40 times as much! Never mind the roads, and that no one lets you build in grids any more (too boring) they have to be winding cul de sacs, and that number increases rapidly.

Because a city is a massive investment. Also, not every city in the US is as densely populated as New York or Chicago. There is little or no justification for building more cities when they can't even populate most cities to the same level as Chicago, New York, San Francisco etc.

A cul de sac or rural development is a far larger investment in materials and labor.

[Broomstick]

However, Ray is trying to insist that the model of Singapore should be followed in other areas which lack the land area constraints which make extensive high rise development viable in the first place. Even the major cities of North America like New York or Chicago tend to have limited high rise development and a lot more development of the medium density sort. Mid-rise apartments (often with business space below) are fairly common in those cities and smaller ones because the accrue most of the enviromental and economic benefits of scale with out incurring the significant costs of engineering, life safety demands, and increased construction costs of major high rises.

Nitpick: I'm not sure Chicago, with 5 of the world's 10 tallest buildings, is the best example for your argument. Yes, Chicago has a lot of mid-rise buildings (although "mid-rise" in Chicago may well be prohibitively tall elsewhere - the Chicago Fire Department I think considers something like 8-10 stories "mid rise") but the downtown core has some fucking huge buildings - up to 110 stories tall and covering entire city blocks (I believe the Merchandise Mart, while not as tall as the Sears Tower, covers multiple city blocks and for sure McCormick Place does). It's a little silly to use Chicago in an argument about building height restrictions given their willingness to build something 1/3 of a mile high. Sure, some areas have restrictions, most notably around O'Hare (where it's a safety issue more than "social tyrants"), but as Wong pointed out you can achieve pretty high density with moderate rise buildings. You don't need "sky towers".

[Broomstick]

I still think it is retarded. Instead of paying the same amount in taxes, he just wants to pay even more as it will go from him to company to taxes instead of simply him to taxes.

The counter-argument is that transport corporations are motivated through competition to keep costs minimal (debatable) and that cost of fuel taxes to transport are not the same as actual profit to the company. I don't see where he will wind up paying more through the indirect taxes imposed on him by transport companies than he would through direct taxation. Again, he would have the option to reduce his tax burden by simply buying less, an option he would not have through direct taxation.

[matus1976]

The ultra-dense cities you're used to are aberrations caused by local conditions. Your home city of Singapore, as I understand it, is constrained pretty heavily by the availability of land. It's gotten so dense because there's no where else to go and yet the city must grow. That happens some times in place like Hong Kong or Mexico City or others where there's a limited area available.

That is true to some extent, but also cities in wide open areas with few zoning laws, like Las Vegas, grow up AND out. Or, a better example, Dubai, which is primarily growing UP.

That's not the case in most major metropolitan areas the world over. It's more prominent in North America because of the standard of living and the sheer material affluence. But large sprawling cities are more often the norm. It simply makes very little economic or technological sense to create your "sky cities" with out other factors necessitating it.

They are the norm because regulations and restrictions force them to be so. It costs more to create a rural development housing 1,000 people than it does a tall building housing 1,000 people.

Other than that, can anyone tell me why people stop building cities as a whole?

They haven't but city size is strongly constrained by economic, technological, and social factors. Skyscrapers are massively more expensive than other buildings, far more than mere scale difference, and are much more difficult to construction and maintain. There's also the issue of infrastructure development and maintenance which become progressively more difficult the more densely packed the population.

The only thing you are correct on here is the social factors, technological and economic factors support the construction of tall buildings. It's more expensive to maintain 1,000 individual small buildings than it is to maintain 1,000 units in 1 larger building. The same is true of infrastructure, consider my example in the previous post of 1,000 small buildings on 1,000 small lots requiring almost 40 times as much linear feet of pipe to service them.

The real world isn't SimCity where you can just go make it so regardless of outside factors.

You should tell that to your local town council member who loves arbitrary zoning restrictions who envision themselves as little simcity deities.

[Darth Wong]

I said I did not want to DIRECTLY pay for roads.

As I pointed out with examples, I do not mind paying the cost indirectly, through something I use, such as transit, or a taxi, or the food I eat.

Except that you are not paying part of the cost when you buy those things; you are benefiting from the road system when you buy those things, because those things are effectively subsidized by the road system.

The delivery companies can and always have passed on the costs to the consumer. I have no problem with that, because I am USING the road system that way. I do NOT want to pay for roads through income taxes, property taxes, and any other tax, other than gas taxes.

I can't believe I have to explain this, but the development of transportation infrastructure has influenced society in incalculable ways. You have never tried living in the sort of society that never developed a modern transportation infrastructure.

[KrauserKrauser]

Arguably he will be paying much the same in taxes but instead of simply handing his money over to the government, he must go through another level of tax administration with required overhead that will increase costs versus direct government payment. The corporation will have to have an beauracratic infrastructure to deal with paying the required taxes from collected monies to the government.

No, taking that in for a moment makes me question why we are currently using it as a both system, which is the worst of both world either direct or indirect taxation as it requires additional inefficiences to function.

Were it to be a choice between indirect and direct taxation I would lean more towards direct taxation as no matter how much he wants to "buy less" the benefits for his direct payment are insurmountably more than say the direct payments I make into the welfare system.

Given the choice, I say fuck his sensibilities and would rather see gas taxes eliminated before funds from direct taxation being forbidden for road construction and infrastructure.