Paul Krugman: Stranded in Suburbia

Paul Krugman is in Berlin:

Stranded in Suburbia, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: I have seen the future, and it works.

O.K., I know that these days you’re supposed to see the future in China or India, not in the heart of “old Europe.”

But we’re living in a world in which oil prices keep setting records... And Europeans who have achieved a high standard of living in spite of very high energy prices — gas in Germany costs more than $8 a gallon — have a lot to teach us about how to deal with that world.

If Europe’s example is any guide, here are the two secrets of coping with expensive oil: own fuel-efficient cars, and don’t drive them too much.

Notice that I said that cars should be fuel-efficient — not that people should do without cars altogether. In Germany, as in the United States, the vast majority of families own cars... But the average German car uses about a quarter less gas per mile than the average American car. By and large, the Germans don’t drive itsy-bitsy toy cars, but they do drive modest-sized passenger vehicles rather than S.U.V.’s and pickup trucks.

In the near future I expect we’ll see Americans moving down the same path. We’ve already done it once: over the course of the 1970s and 1980s...

Can we also drive less? Yes — but getting there will be a lot harder.

There have been many news stories in recent weeks about Americans who are changing their behavior in response to expensive gasoline...

But none of it amounts to much. For example, some major public transit systems are excited about ridership gains of 5 or 10 percent. But fewer than 5 percent of Americans take public transit to work, so this surge of riders takes only a relative handful of drivers off the road.

Any serious reduction in American driving will require more than this — it will mean changing how and where many of us live.

To see what I’m talking about, consider where I am at the moment: in a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood consisting mainly of four- or five-story apartment buildings, with easy access to public transit and plenty of local shopping.

It’s the kind of neighborhood in which people don’t have to drive a lot, but it’s also a kind of neighborhood that barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas. Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars. ...

Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than cars. Long after today’s S.U.V.’s have become antique collectors’ items, millions of people will still be living in subdivisions built when gas was $1.50 or less a gallon.

Infrastructure is another problem. Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it’s hard to justify transit systems unless there’s sufficient population density, yet it’s hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access.

And there are, as always in America, the issues of race and class. Despite the gentrification that has taken place in some inner cities, and the plunge in national crime rates to levels not seen in decades, it will be hard to shake the longstanding American association of higher-density living with poverty and personal danger.

Still, if we’re heading for a prolonged era of scarce, expensive oil, Americans will face increasingly strong incentives to start living like Europeans — maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.

Comments

[Smaller]

Okay, if gas stays high, Americans will buy smaller vehicles, and drive less. Europeans get by, so we will muddle through too.

The real problem with adapting to high fossil fuel prices could be home heating. Americans are forbidden to build the type of small homes that Europeans dwell in, so they don't have any way to deal with heating costs. Unless everyone moves to warm Texas.

[dca]

I remember once getting a calendar that used satellite photos for decoration, produced by a German firm. One illustration showed southern California (Mojave desert included), with a caption that began something like "The area shown is the same size as the Federal Republic" (this was before 1989). It is easy to forget just how big the US is, compared to Europe. Of course for urban areas he is quite right.

[Cyrille]

"Americans are forbidden to build the type of small homes that Europeans dwell in"

What do you mean? Is there really some law stating that your house must be at least a certain size?

Anyway, most Europeans don't dwell in small houses, rather in small apartment buildings.

[german_reader]

Interesting comment. I don't know why he has chosen Germany as an example. With our "Autobahnen", the lack of a speed limit and lots of gas guzzling luxury cars on the roads we are not exactly a model for an ecological traffic system. France may be a better example. And German car producers oppose with regularity stricter emission or gas consumption limits from the EU. That starts to be embarrasing.

Nevertheless, even with an gasoline price of 1.45-1.50 euros per litre ( $6.20-6.40 per gallon adjusted for purchasing power ) the annnual gasoline bill of the average German car driver is now lower than the gasoline bill of the average American driver, thanks to more fuel efficient cars and lower driving distances. And the far larger size of the United States is only an insufficient explanation for the much higher gasoline consumption in the U.S.. Most private private car usage is short and middle distance. Guess there are not a lot of Americans who drive regularly from New York to Los Angeles by car. And even in "small" Germany it's easy to drive a few hundreds kilometres a day.

The main difference are probably settlement structures, car preferences and the availability of public transit. And that can be changed.

Besides, in regard to home heating, Americans tend to think in terms of big ( as in BigMac ) is beautiful. The quality of the average American home isn't that great. A good starting point for a more energy efficient future would be not only to build more appartment blocks and smaller homes, but also to build better and more energy efficient houses. And that should be possible even under U.S. conditions.

[Gil]

I don't know - there are alternatives to petrol cars - LPG cars, natural gas cars, electric cars, pushbikes . If money was no object I'd get me a Tesla Roadster and get me a car port covered with solar panels. >:P

[Cyrille]

"I don't know why he has chosen Germany as an example."

Because he is, right now at this very moment, in Germany.
I agree that the constant opposition to fuel efficiency requests fails to endear me to the German car manufacturers...

[Stefan]

The US may also want to work on insulating their homes. From my vists there I would expect huge energy savings. Here in Germany we are going all the way, requiring that all houses have an "energy pass".

Looking forward to hearing Paul Krugman tonight in Frankfurt.

[Mark Thoma]

Hi Stefan - nice to hear from you.

[Farrar]

Paul, don't you believe in car pooling? The pie chart you posted on your blog a few weeks ago showed that could be the fastest way for big gas savings.

Of course, Europe would not be a good model for car pooling - at least not France.

[hari]

The Prof.Dr.Dr....is finally coming in *confrontation* with public transport and its value to the urban economy. May be he should travel less to Lon/LSE and see a bit more of France, Bavaria and Austria to understand to real economy of public transport and its basic safety.

[SanFranciscoJim]

Suburbanites, especially in high energy usage areas like Phoenix and Miami are in for a world of hurt. I don't feel even the tiniest bit sorry for them.

[ajay]

Actually, hari, I can't think of a better place to see the benefits of public transport than London. I'm writing this from a London office. About (I would guess) 4-500 people work here. There are five parking spaces in the garage. Four are empty. There is also a large bike rack. It is full and overflowing. In other words, almost the entire workforce came to work this morning by bike or public transport - I'd bet a significant number don't even own a car...

[german_reader]

@Cyrille,

thanks.

I had noticed that. But even then Germany isn't the best example. We could do a lot more then we actually do, without much higher costs.

[eh]

Here Krugman points out the obvious: if people have easy access to good public transit and live close to places where they can buy the everyday things they need, then they will drive less, and maybe not own a car at all (I live in Berlin and I do not own a car).

His (albeit brief) comments about race/ethnicity, housing density, crime, etc are relevant, but (still) strike me as simplistic and naive.

[Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard.]

What a monumental understatement.

[BJ Feng]

It's so obvious that you have to ask why people aren't doing it. Could it be that it isn't affordable and practical? People want to live near their workplace, but a lot of people can't afford a residence in those areas so they have to move to the suburbs and drive everyday. No one wants to wait in traffic or have a 45 minute drive each way, that cost is figured into the determination of where to live. Simply, it still is less "costly" to drive from the suburbs than pay for a small apartment near the workplace.

Carpooling is a sham, and a ridiculous policy that has to be abandoned by the ivory tower elitists who came up with that failed policy. Think of what it actually takes for someone to carpool. They need to find a person who both lives near them AND works near them. If that isn't enough, the time and money saved by carpooling has to be greater than the time it takes to drive to pickup your carpooling partner AND the forgo the convenience of stopping at the grocery store or dry cleaners on your way to or back from work! 99% of the time, it makes no sense to carpool at all. The costs are just too high and the inconvenience too big.

Most public transportation has to be heavily subsidized and they still have very limited ridership. Why? Because time is money. Waiting for the bus is a cost, and the bus can't get you to work faster than driving since the bus has to use the same roads. Gasoline is still cheap, even with the current prices, it is simply still not worth it yet to take public transportation for most people, which is why ridership is only up a mere 15% or so. To get people to take mass transportation, you need light rail or subways that can move faster than a car in rush hour traffic. The rider will calculate the time it takes to walk or drive to the stop, and then from the stop to work, and if it saves them time or is at least similar, they'll do it. Oh, and the cost of a monthly pass has to also be lower than operating costs for a car, maybe much lower since a car is needed anyhow for non-work pleasure trips. It maybe that driving is the optimal method here in the United States, thanks to our spread out cities and the low cost of gasoline.

[Dunc]

Driving only seems optimal because of extensive hidden subsidy and high cost of entry. If all roads maintenance costs, car taxes and insurance were charged as a gasoline tax (i.e. effectively a cost per km) instead of being socialised or charged as a lump sum as at present, it would quickly be apparent that driving is not cheaper than public transport. In fuel terms, for example, the average bus only has to average 4 passengers per trip to be more fuel and space efficient than a car. The challenge is in getting the buses to go where people want to go, and this is where the incoherent american urban layouts present a large problem.

[Noni Mausa]

eh said: ...if people have easy access to good public transit and live close to places where they can buy the everyday things they need, then they will drive less, and maybe not own a car at all (I live in Berlin and I do not own a car).

Yes. However...

I was car-less five years in a compact city with okay bus service. For the most part this worked, but the difficulties I encountered involved traveling when I wanted, not when the busses ran, driving friends home or out shopping, and carrying ungainly objects home.

A good friend, in her 80s, would come for supper every week and leave around 9, to take the bus home and then walk five blocks at the other end. In the winter, this worried me.

Groceries in bulk? For five years, if I couldn't carry it in my arms or in my college-student backpack, I would either have to take a cab home or else beg the indulgence of friends with cars.

Another less obvious problem is securing employment. Many of the jobs I applied for, required a car because the office was in an area without frequent bus service, or for the activities inherent in the job. (The last job I had, did not pay any gas mileage for this privilege. Cheapskates.)

A driver's license is frequently required as a condition of employment, I guess as a kind of proof of legitimacy. If you can't get or keep a driver's license, then there's something wrong with you -- perhaps you are a poor driver, an alcoholic, or just too chronically poor to join the road club -- all things which an employer might regret. But how do people get such licenses or keep them fresh if they have forsworn car ownership?

The entanglements of the automobile culture are everywhere.

Noni

[Sarah]

BJ Feng says... Could it be that it isn't affordable and practical?

Could it be that it's not available? I've always thought it weird that Americans don't see this as a basic issue of freedom. My choices are so much wider in, say Washington DC than in Los Angeles it's almost like the difference between trying to get around in a third world country vs. a first world one. But as good as DC's public transport is it doesn't have a patch on most European cities.

In Prague, where I am now, intervals between metro trains are one or two minutes. Even on weekends or at night they're no longer than 9 minutes. In DC it takes me at least an extra half hour to get from Northern VA (within walking distance of the metro) to my sister's in MD (also within metro walking distance) by metro as opposed to car. By contrast going from my mother-in-law's apartment in a comparable nearby suburb to the center of Prague takes about 20 minutes by a combination of bus and metro. Going by car would take considerably longer and there would be no place to park when I got there.

It's hard to believe that bus and tram service can be this efficient until you've actually experienced it. I lived for a brief period in LA without a car back in the 80's. It was a nightmare. The buses were usually scheduled to run no more than twice an hour-- and they never ran on time. I frequently waited 45 minutes or more before two buses showed up together.

In Prague, on the other hand, I almost never wait more than 5 minutes. In the center there are trams and buses running almost without a break all day. I frequently take 'sight-seeing' trips by getting on a random bus or tram and seeing where it takes me. And although the metro closes at midnight there are night trams that will get you anywhere you need to go. So you can go to the opera and out for drinks afterwards -- or party away until two in the morning-- and not have to worry about how you will get home, or getting a designated driver.

I think Americans also overestimate how difficult it is to get good public transportation to a city. One reason is that bus transport is so closely associated with the lower class in the US that middle class Americans don't even think of it as an option. But running a line of comfortable, modern buses at 5 minute intervals in dedicated lanes on a few major routes could probably change that perception very quickly. Then perhaps we could start to build back the wonderful tram system that once existed in every major town and city. And Americans could finally rejoin the rest of the first world in having good choices about how to get where they want to go.

[bakho]

Many people live in the burbs because the urban school systems suck. My cousin in the big city goes to a private school that costs over $10K per year. $10K will buy a lot of transportation, even at $4 per gallon. Not just cars, but suburban developers get all kinds of subsidies that make what they do more lucrative.

[acerimusdux]

Another option that might become more popular as long as gas prices stay high is motor scooters.

For about $2,000 you can get a small 50cc scooter with about a 1.5 g tank that will go up to about 40 mph and get almost 100 mpg.

For about $5,000 you can get a larger model with a larger engine (about 250 cc) that will easily handle highway speeds (up to about 70 mph), and still get around 65 mpg.

These are a good option for those for whom public transportation is too inconvenient or unavailable. I bet a lot of people would find these sufficient for most of their travel, at a lower cost than a car.

And at current prices, the gas savings alone could even pay for the cost of one of the less expensive models as a second vehicle.

[robertdfeinman]

Krugman keeps focusing on personal transport in the 'burbs, but the real problem is the long supply chain for "everything".

The average distance food travels in the US is said to be on the order of 1500 miles. Most of the stuff bought at Walmart travels 3000+ miles. Even living in a city won't help, you can walk or ride to work, but where does your food come from?

The buy local movement is also a bit delusional. There isn't enough agricultural land close to the NY metro area to supply all the food required, and even if there was, would people give up oranges and bananas? Would people be willing to eat nothing by canned foods and root vegetables for six months of the year as was done before mechanical refrigeration?

To make matters worse there is an international trend away from the land and into mega-cities. Efficient use of fuel is a much bigger problem then just transit.

[reason]

robertdfeinman...
I haven't seen the sums but I suspect that supply chain doesn't actually exceed most people's personal transport energy costs. It is more efficient transporting goods in bulk than transporting one individual in half a ton of metal. Especially if goods are transported on water. If we are serious about energy savings, we will use canals and rivers more. You should be able to do this sum easily enough. Just find out total truck miles * fuel/mile and compare it to total car miles * fuel/mile.

[Joy]

In 2005, during the gas price spike after Hurricane Katrina, I started taking an express commuter bus from a park and ride lot into work. The bus is crowded but generally comfortable if you get a seat. This is in the DC area. I sometimes ride in a hybrid bus or a bus burning natural gas. The bus generally gets better time to work than a single-occupant car because the bus takes HOV lanes. Expanding a system of commuter buses from suburb to suburb (or from suburb to subway, which we also have), especially over common longer routes, and using alternative fuels (especially ones already in use), is a quick way to expand transit service as demand rises. Employers need to do their part by allowing (as possible) flexible work schedules and telecommuting.

[reason]

Robert...
while not being a fan of mega cities, they don't necessarily make a big difference to average transport distances for goods. The reason is that lots of micro journeys pretty soon add up to more than a few mega-macro journeys. And in a diverse world economy, lots of goods are still going to have to travel around, even if we could locally source more of it.

I actually think we would be better trying to replace our mega cities with coglomerations of compact walkable large towns with infrequent but rapid long distance transit links and very frequent local transit links. It may make sense to have transport hubs OUTSIDE of urban areas (haven't thought that one through yet). We could evolve our existing megacities into this form by building green zones into them. Megacities are too big and have too much traffic for people to walk confortably and their local communities tend to self-select into uniformity. How best to maintain local diversity is one of the great unsolved problems, I think.

[paine]

trying to cluster us

sprwal and ramble lovin'
burbs trash
goes back to the puritans
didn't "stick "
then
won't stick now

even at $15 a gallon gas
we crave them wide open spaces

country livin'
is the life for meeeeee

[reason]

paine - suburbs aren't wide open spaces, most of the land is private property of streets. But yes the problem is that everyone wants their own big block of land. But the cost of that is that everything is spread out. And a lot of that spreading out is wasted space (for roads and parking - and the parking is not just for the house, but for possible destinations as well). If people want to have access to public open spaces, then they need to accept smaller blocks. The problem is advertising that makes people forget that some of the costs of things aren't in the price ticket. People think that can have everything and don't have to make tradeoffs.

[robertdfeinman]

In my suburban neighborhood those who spend the most money on getting their yards kept up perfectly are also the ones who never step outside.

I have a live and let live agreement with most of the plants growing in my yard, although I do keep them from taking over and I spend every day when the weather is nice sitting in the back yard with some outdoor speakers playing (softly) and a wireless internet connection, and a supply of reading material.

You can take city folks to the suburbs it seems, but you can't get them to interact with it...

By the way, ocean transport is very cheap (numbers at Wikipedia), but getting from the ports to the interior is not. Walmart has over 7000 semis in the US alone.

[reason]

Robert - but 7000 Semis compared with (guess probably low) 150 million private cars is chicken feed. I saw a paper from year 2000 that said that over 90 percent of vehicles on the road are passenger vehicles, but I'm still trying to find an up to date figure with total miles and total fuel consumption.

[paine]

reason
bravo

"I'm still trying to find an up to date figure with total miles and total fuel "

when u get a handle on
the cost in product mark ups
do to transport charges all the way from points of origin to final point of sale to households
using say $10- $15 dollar gas/diesel per gallon
i think you'll
find its not even equal to
a pair of annual increases in health costs
and even using a couple
off years for medical price jumps

the relative size of all these
peak oil
nite mare scenarios
needs a good airing out

[paine]

btw
my personal preference for habitation
would be vastly dense all in one
work /play /shop /sweat /eat /sleep...
mega structures
containing say
10 million tightly inter acting
atomic souls

my motto for a steady state globe

20 billion hu-spirits

packed into 2 k settlements waters edge

[cm]

Noni: The "driver's license as ID" is only a figure of speech. Most, if not all, states have state IDs without the license part, and there is no requirement to get a driver's license instead of an ID card. I presume the vast majority of people have the license version, but not all.

[lonesome_moderate]

It would seem that cities that were built before the automobile and the railroad (Europe and the eastern seaboard of the USA) are much better designed for "modern" transportation.

[cm]

SF Jim: I think your contempt for "suburbanites" is misplaced. Most are just regular people, who have to live somewhere, or if they move in from outside, have to locate where the jobs are. Not everybody can live in your enlightened city, for sheer physical limitations if nothing else. Show me anything on the peninsula other than SF that deserves to be called a "city".

[Sam Z.]

It does seem to be the case that Europe is better placed to reduce dependence on cars and transition to more mass transit.

But why can't the US keep it's car-based culture and transition to non-oil-powered cars instead? Is there some fundamental physical reason why you can't have nuclear or solar energy driving battery-operated cars? This approach would mean relatively few changes to the built environment: you could still have suburbs and sprawl, you'd just have to change all the cars and trucks. This would be tough, but nonetheless probably easier than re-making the entire built envronment.

Of course, I realise that actually doing this would mean overcoming major obstacles, but is there any reason to believe these would be insurmountable?

Sam.

[cm]

lonesome: Is that so? Last time I checked, back then they used to have narrow roads, and you would have to raze a lot of buildings to lay train tracks.

They problem with transit, even in "Europe", is that under current business models it does not profitably scale to support large areas.

Most city-centered transit systems have high-traffic interchanges, usually close to the center which are a crowd-control hell.

During the busiest commute times, the number of vehicles/trains can not be adequately scaled, mostly for physical reasons that the infrastructure supports only a max frequency, so you get large crowds, and both with buses and trains it has happened to me that I had to let up to 2-3 trains/buses go before I could get on one. And that in a place where many people were commuting by car.

Public transit is more efficient than cars, but in populated areas with diverse commute patterns there are capacity limits, both physical and economic. If current trends of employment instability (changing jobs every so often, and having to take jobs wherever they are) continue, I don't see how that can be supported by effective public transit alone.

[The Baron]

paine, your vision of perfection is close to my vision of Hell. Is it so wrong that I don't want to share a wall with someone? I don't want to have to worry about turning my stereo all the way up when I want to, and not have to worry about hearing my neighbor when he wants to do the same?

I spent this weekend in a rather nice and high end hotel. Still I was kept awake by the next rooms blaring T.V. and their headboard banging against the wall at around 3 a.m. My gf lives in a duplex, and was complaining her neighbor left his hose on all night and flooded the common back yard.

Good fences makes good neighbors. I want mine, and if it costs a bit more, well then that's the breaks.

[kthomas]

"my personal preference for habitation
would be vastly dense all in one
work /play /shop /sweat /eat /sleep...
mega structures
containing say
10 million tightly inter acting
atomic souls"

Reminds me of J Vernes or HG Wells. Is there really enough raw-material to make such strucutres? Silicates are plentiful, as is aluminium. But these mega-strucutres, they would be an insult to Mother Nature.

[Alex Tolley]

In Prague, on the other hand, I almost never wait more than 5 minutes....
I think Americans also overestimate how difficult it is to get good public transportation to a city. One reason is that bus transport is so closely associated with the lower class in the US that middle class Americans don't even think of it as an option. But running a line of comfortable, modern buses at 5 minute intervals in dedicated lanes on a few major routes could probably change that perception very quickly....
and
I concur that US services are nothing more than a sop. I live in Los Gatos, a wealthy suburb near San Jose at teh southern tip of Silicon valley. Bus services are every 1/2 hour - essentially a rural service. My daughter and her friends get driven to school and picked up again, simply because waiting for a bus is too tedious. It takes a fraction of the time to collect her than her waiting for the bus and the time the bus would finally deposit her near the house. Buses require "exact change" so you need to have the correct fare or you overpay if you want a ride. Modern, thoughtful, high frequency bus services could possibly alleviate much of this mess.

As result of this insanity, there are traffic jams every day starting at the end of the school day in the mid-afternoon, parking is a nightmare in the town because it is so restricted.

However I think that much of the problem is the established pattern of services. European cities had mass transit, especially trains established early in the industrial era. US cities either never had them or effectively abandoned them so that the automobile became the dominant mode of transport. It may not be easy to re-establish patterns of mass transit use again. Certainly the local light rail system servicing San Jose was a very expensive white elephant. One wonders whether this might have been successful if the city had opted for radically extending teh bus service instead - perhaps with a fleet of city buses rather than relying on VTA.

Much as I admire good mass transit, I certainly loathed the London Underground which was much too crowded and where one would spend upwards of an hour hanging on a strap, pressed against smelly passengers in stifling, almost cattle car conditions. The stoicism of the Japanese on their systems is a marvel to behold. Sometimes, sitting in a traffic jam in your own car with room to breathe can feel like heaven in comparison...

[Alex Tolley]

Paine: my personal preference for habitation
would be vastly dense all in one
work /play /shop /sweat /eat /sleep...
mega structures
containing say
10 million tightly inter acting
atomic souls

These human hives are technically quite feasible. As they become more self contained, they become "arcologies". Designed well, they could be quite desirable. Unfortunately they probably won't be designed well and would become the rotting structures so epitomized by the Corbusier inspired high density living buildings so enamored by the 1960's central planners. I personally distrust much of this work simply because our history has shown how little real thought goes into centrally planned communities. Public and private both.

[JeffF]

"Public transit is more efficient than cars, but in populated areas with diverse commute patterns there are capacity limits, both physical and economic. If current trends of employment instability (changing jobs every so often, and having to take jobs wherever they are) continue, I don't see how that can be supported by effective public transit alone."

You have this exactly backward. Job instability and multiple workers per household makes car based transportation and sprawl worse for people.

Car transport requires sprawl, it is the only way there can be room for all the roads and parking lots. In end state sprawl businesses are scattered around the sprawl just like households. If there was only one worker per household, and jobs were very stable everyone could move to the suburb they work in and commute distances could be small. A reasonable number of people could even walk or bike to work. However when you switch jobs in the sprawl your new job is going to be some distance from your old one. Similarly if there are two workers in a household their jobs are likely to be far from each other meaning at least one of them has a significant commute, and in the suburbs that means they must drive.

In the denser public transportation based development each job is closer to each other job, so switching jobs changes your commute less and living close to both jobs is easier.

[paine]

an insult to Mother Nature

bring her on .....!!!!

[paine]

baron
transylvania
has no sound proofing ????

besides
if you have to fly far and wide
to find a lovely neck to bite
you'll be too exhausted
from the search
to extract a full tanks worth

[Lafayette]

MT: Paul Krugman is in Berlin

And George Stiglitz is in Germany as well (probably plugging his new 3 trillion dollar book. Curious coincidence.

George came beaming across the evening news of a TV channel that is conjointly transmitted by both Germany and France.

He was there to tell us that:
1) On the one hand, Americans work too much and do not enjoy leisure, and
2) On the other hand, The French/Germans do not work enough and therefore do not enjoy material comfort.

And I'm looking, with both hands, for that one-handed Economics Nobel Laureate. Anyway, George was right on both hands.

Were life so simple ... because the title of the news emission tonight was this, "Poor Rich Germany". It appears that one out of four Germans now lives below the poverty line established at close to three and half thousand euros. (In France, you'd live like a king on that.)

[Lafayette]

Article: But the average German car uses about a quarter less gas per mile than the average American car.... the Germans don’t drive itsy-bitsy toy cars, but they do drive modest-sized passenger vehicles rather than S.U.V.’s and pickup trucks.

And, though Krugman obviously did not see it, about half the cars driven are diesel engine. Diesel engined cars gets MUCH better mileage than the ordinary gas engine car. (One in two French cars are diesel driven. And, uh, why do American transport trucks run on diesel engines?)

But, for some silly reason, Americans didn't want diesel engine cars. Too smelly. Hard to start on cold days. Etc. etc.

Good. Now they are paying the price (sic!) for that myopia.

[paine]

laff

you are in a spritely mood
its quite becoming

your comment on j stglitz live on tv
is very astute
stig has the bite of a clover gorged lamb
even when he's outlining
a multi national
corporate induced doomsday

[kthomas]

Diesel fuel is not the answer. That will only lengthen the problem.

Does Prof. Krugman pick the title for his pieces? This one is well-named.

[Bawdyscot]

SanFranJim,

As someone who has lived in the Phoenix area for more than forty years(brought here as a three year old kid from LA)you can keep your ill will towards your eastern neighbor as the coming energy revelations just might turn the tide and have this country's transplants go elsewhere for their snowless winters and year round great weather. I am just supremely happy I don't reside in your state as dysfunctional as it is.

[BJ Feng]

Again the costs have to be discussed. There isn't more frequent public transportation in the US because the sparse transportation network is already bleeding red ink. Yes, most buses run every half hour, to reduce that to 15 minutes, you would have to double the number of buses and bus drivers and almost double the cost (I'll assume some savings from scale). Monthly passes here in Los Angeles cost less than $100, including the subway that I've never ridden. To make public transportation viable the fares have to rise, but it can't rise to the point where driving makes more sense. In the end, there is just no way public transportation can complete with a car, thanks to the, still low price of gasoline.

Why are public transportation costs so high? Can you say union? The bus drivers' union held the City of Los Angeles hostage a few years ago and are receiving incredible wages and benefits. Also buses cannot be maintained by anyone else but the mechanics union. The city just can't add new routes for buses, no, they have to get union permission first, and that means another big check. How does Europe live with its mass transit unions? I don't know.

In the end, it's all about costs. There is simply no way a politician can justify doubling the transportation budget to benefit the few people who use mass transit. In Los Angeles, doubling the budget would not draw enough people to make it worthwhile, I suspect the same could be said for other cities as well. We have sprawl because rent is so much cheaper away from the city center. That's why there's a huge commute from Pomona to Los Angeles, and from the Valley down South in the mornings. The rent out in the suburbs are half of that in Los Angeles proper (unless you want to live in a really bad neighborhood).

[kthomas]

Nice post BJ.

I don't agree with your jibe about unions, but yes, the cost is the issue. What did you think of paine's "megastructures" idea? Somewhere, we all have to meet half-way on this.

[jfb2252]

responding to Sam Z at 0941:

"Is there some fundamental physical reason why you can't have nuclear or solar energy driving battery-operated cars?"

Yes. The problem is energy storage. There's nothing that beats petroleum products for energy density and ease of storage. There's a lot of research going on in this area but all the gains so far have been incremental rather than economy-transforming. Batteries may get the point where they can handle daily 100 mile round trips for ten years without replacement some time next decade, but I wouldn't bet a lot on it.

Perhaps a nano-material will allow reversible hydrogen storage at modest weight with simple re-charging someday. I suspect the tanks will have to be treated like propane: two tanks per car, standard size and fittings. When one is exhausted, automatically switch to second and pop a warning light. Exchange first at a "gas station" for a full one when convenient. Pay fee for hydrogen and tank maintenance. I suspect the recharge apparatus will be too expensive for home installation.

[baileyman]

This is actually a story not about how we will change, but how we will not, and what we will do to "defend the American way of life" as Bush Sr. put it. Watch out world!

[degustibus]

My daughter works for king County, Seattle. She gets a free bus pass and lives on the bus line. Saves her $70/ week.

I live in as small semirural town in Oregon, got an overpriced Prius, drove it less than 2500 miles last year, get about 30-35mpg on short hauls. Much better on freeway.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Crime and horrid schools are barriers to re-urbanization.

Solve those, it might work.

[paine]

"Crime and horrid schools are barriers to re-urbanization"

rusty is that checkmate ???

[anne]

"Why are public transportation costs so high? Can you say union? The bus drivers' union held the City of Los Angeles hostage a few years ago and are receiving incredible wages and benefits."

Can you say $100,000 or $200,000 or $300,000 or $400,000 or $500,000 yearly?

Hostage? Can you say hostage?

[alex]

Lafayette: for some silly reason, Americans didn't want diesel engine cars

The main reason is the simplest one: until recently the price of fuel wasn't high enough to justify diesel for cars in the US (lower performance and higher initial costs).

IIRC diesel cars were briefly popular in the late 1970's to early 1980's. More recently, US emission regulations made it next to impossible to sell diesel cars in the US. However, recent engine improvements (along with the phase-in of ULSD) have allowed Honda and Mercedes to introduce diesels in the US in the last year.

Limitation: diesel fuel now costs about 25% more than gas. This is mostly because the world demand for diesel (and similar distillates, like home heating oil) has increased faster than the demand for gas. There are technical limits to what percentage of a barrel of oil you can turn into diesel.

[BJ Feng]

Paine's megacity idea would not work here in Los Angeles where we're still waiting for the Big One to hit. There's been criticism of Chinese builders, but I doubt our structures would do much better in a 7.9 quake, only the high-rises might survive (they are supposed to). I lived through the much smaller 6.6 Northridge Earthquake and a quake 10 times more powerful would totally destroy most of Los Angeles. It's unrealistic to expect ordinary buildings to resist that kind of power, the costs would be enormous. It would be less costly just to rebuild.

America is blessed with an incredible amount of land. I drove through the country with friends during college and I was amazed at the endless miles of sparsely populated terrain, devoid of farms or any human activity. The beautiful rolling hills of Austria, and the sporadic windmilled countryside of Holland seem crowded by comparison. This gift of land allows us to have our own private backyards and sprawling McMansions decorated in whatever gaudy style we wish to display. Despite what Lafayette says, I have no doubt the United States enjoys the highest living standard in the world, I've been to many places and none can compare. How much is walking around in your private backyard eden worth? We can grow tomatoes, carrots, and basil on our land if we wish, only those living in the countryside of Europe can say the same. It's not just an American fetish, the suburban home, people in other countries want the same, they just can't afford it. It must have been shocking for my cousins to see all the greenery when they arrived here from Shanghai, China. There are quite a number of large parks in Shanghai, but those are just about the only places where you can see grass or vegetation. My uncle had plotted plants on the balcony of his 7th story apartment in China, he was excited to see all the land available and wondered why we didn't make more use of it. These are luxuries that we don't often think of, but we should take them into consideration. Most Americans have already decided a lush backyard is worth the hassle and cost of traveling miles and miles to work.

[Sam Z.]

jfb2252:

I can see that batteries are a bottleneck right now, but as oil prices rise, people may prove more willing to pay for replacement batteries, charge more often and so on. In any case, given the huge obstacles to changing where and how people live, I think it may well turn out to be the case that the US ends up sticking to some sort of car-based model.

Sam.

[Sam Z.]

BJ Feng:

You're extrapolating current rates of usage to decide whether or not more frequent or better quality public transport would work. But demand for transport can grow abruptly with quality of supply. I wouldn't ever consider taking public transport to work if it were only once an hour and took twice as long as driving; if it were every 15 minutes and faster than driving, I'd never drive. The implication is that there's a sort of "activation barrier", a hump you have to get over: if you once get it right, you win over a whole tranche of new customers. There are major scale effects here.

Sam.

[OhNoNotAgain]

"Most Americans have already decided a lush backyard is worth the hassle and cost of traveling miles and miles to work."

Don't get too excited about this. Check back in on this in a few years and you'll see less and less people excited about driving miles and miles when gas is 6+ bucks a gallon. At some point it simply is too inefficient to transport one person in one vehicle unless that vehicle is immensely smaller. I suspect that we'll go much smaller first, and finally start to cave in to more communal transportation options. As much as we dread the thought, at some point we won't be able to afford privacy when it comes to transportation. We'll have effectively pissed away nature's gift of oil in ~150 years.

[cm]

Bawdyscot: Hey, SF is snowless. The year round great weather part can be debated, what with all that fog and cold damp air (at least in some micro climate zones).

[cm]

JeffF: If you look at (the larger) European cities, at any time since industrialization much of industry and business, and the associated workforce housing, was outside the "established" city core at best, and often in satellite cities and sub-urbs in the literal sense (the before-the-car version of sprawl). How far the workforce lives away from the workplace, and conversely commute mileage, has always been a matter of transportation facilities.

I agree that today's structures, including workplace "flexibility", could only develop in a car paradigm. I did not mean to say public transit will not work at all, but I contend it does not work very well in today's car-enabled structures.

I am actually familiar with the situation in Berlin, and more importantly its outer districts and fringes. Many important roads are only two lanes each direction, putting a question mark on bus lanes. Due to a high building density, new infrastructure cannot be built, and the train and bus systems run close to capacity.

One of the problems is that even with social and economic "adjustments", most of the transit usage will still be in peak times, and the capacity issue will be one of peak capacity.

You could probably put far more buses on the road, if you could get some cars off of it, but you would probably have to install more bus stops and crowd holding areas at interchanges. It's not just a matter of the number of vehicles. Imagine a few hundred people more changing lines every few minutes, and heavens forbid schedule disruptions with constructions, accidents, vehicle breakdowns, etc. I have on occasion seen entry to train platforms being restricted because of crowd accumulations.

It will be "interesting" (in the Chinese sense) to see how this plays out. In general, paradigm changes only occur when the old paradigm stops working, and are generally associated with pain and suffering of sorts.

[benamery21]

What is the cheapest/easiest/fastest way to make a substantial dent in U.S. transportation energy consumption?
Carpool!

Why don't people carpool despite significant monetary benefits? It's a very simple form of market failure known as imperfect information. Very simply, you don't know everyone who lives on your commute route, where they work, what their work schedule is, whether they desire to carpool, and whether they would be a desirable carpool partner.

The role of regulation is to cure market imperfections.

In the case of carpooling, a survey of all commuters would build a database of all willing participants' carpooling parameters. Participant's could be rated by fellow users. More (and more pointed) PSA's regarding participation would make the point that only dumbkopf's WANT to give more money to BIG OIL than they need to. It's easy, sign-up to day, save $2000/yr, meet new people, save wear and tear on your car, avoid traffic in the carpool lane, reduce gas prices and congestion for everyone, let GEORGE drive while YOU kick back, etc.

[Lafayette]

paine: stig has the bite of a clover gorged lamb

Stig perhaps thinks he's the socialist wolf in sheep's clothing? He get's interviews here because he's a Nobel Prize laureate. It would be nice if he had something interesting to say.

I don't think he has the foggiest notion of how monolithic socialism (even democratic socialism) can be ... and, political economics, how intellectually bankrupt of ideas -- at least in Europe -- it has become.

It is, literally, tax and spend ... and that's about it. Willy-nilly, helter-skelter, tax and spend on the poor.

Which is why Europe still has its poor. Money's been spent badly, but at least Europe has a safety net that America can only dream of. Let's hope Krugman and Stiglitz are here to understand its workings.

The French socialists are in a dither about who should take over the party in France. It reminds one, easily, of the Dems in the US. They are all backbiting one another. Immobile in their lack of new ideas. Pathetically immobile, but all over TV with reproaches for the Rightist French government. (I pontificate on TV, therefore I exist - Descartes might say.)

They still can't get over how, after having introduced the 35-hour week ten years ago, torpedoing France's productivity, the French people could have had the gall to chuck them out.

Labor will likely lose the next general election, since it lost badly the last by-election, because of the dour Scotsman who is leading it.

The German socialists can't seem to undermine Angela, so they just try to hamper her, since she needs them to form a minority government. Which condemns her to a bland middle-of-the-road political stance. The Germans Left seems as neolithic as the French, when it comes to change. It is quite beyond them.

What Europe needs is a professional Change Agent. If BO doesn't win in the states, will you send him over? Please.

[cm]

Lafayette: You should know better than that. Europe has poverty because of "spending on the poor"? Give me a break.

The recent recognition of a German "precariat", a US-style class of the underprivileged and working poor, started a short while after the latest labor market and unemployment/welfare "reforms" a few years ago.

Cutting "spending on the poor" doesn't create better-paying jobs, nor better aggregate demand. Neither does "spending on the rich" instead.

[BJ Feng]

In case you didn't read my previous post, let me repeat, carpooling is a foolish, unworkable thought experiment that must be abandoned.

Let's just assume by some miracle that your co-worker lives in your vicinity. The time and money saved by using a carpool would have to exceed the time it takes to drive over and pick him up, and then drop him off. If you share the burden, then fine, divide that cost by half. This alone eliminates 99% of the population from considering carpooling, but let's just assume that a national database has been set up and that a person on your block does work near where you work, AND that the time lost from picking him up and dropping him off half of the time is exceeded by the time saved from using the carpool lane.

Those are an awful lot of assumptions, but even if you accept them, we're not done yet. If you carpool, you lock in your schedule. You MUST be there to pick up your partner on time from work. But what if you need to stay a few minutes later to finish a project? That partner isn't going to be very happy having to wait when he could be on the way home by himself in his own car. And your partner also can't stay a few minutes later either. Is this practical? What if you are able to finish early and want to go home? Nope, you have to wait anyway. And don't bother stopping off at the grocery shop or cleaners, nope, you're locked into a schedule with no flexibility. Once partners start to deviate, it no longer makes sense to carpool. A couple of times waiting 15 minutes or going grocery shopping with my partner and I quit the carpool. Much better just to drive alone.

And what if you are sick that day? Well you'll have to inform your carpool partner, sure it seems simple, just another phone call, but that's definitely another burden. What if there is an emergency or unexpected event and you need to leave your work early? Sure, just explain it to your partner and ask him to take a cab, but he'll be pissed. That's a $50 ride, or else he'll have to stay near work until someone else can pick him up and they'll be pissed. One of those and the carpool is dead.

Carpooling just doesn't make any sense. Only in a fantasy world where there are never any emergencies and everyone always arrives on time will carpooling work. Otherwise it's a big hassle and saves very little time or money in comparison. That's why I don't know of a single person who carpools. Oh sure they might exist, but all the conditions have to be just right. I think it's safe to say that 99.99% of people will not be able to meet all the above conditions. Instead of planning for a mystical world, why not plan for the real one?

Carpool lanes should be eliminated, or replaced by dedicated bus lanes so that buses can travel faster than the traffic in rush hour (lanes only closed during rush hour). Given that buses already can travel the carpool lanes and dedicated bus lanes already exist, I have to assume that it's impossible to establish a bus route that will take a significant number of people home. It's simply not efficient to create a bus route to and from every destination. And we are too spread out to make it practical.

So in the end, eliminate the carpool lanes period. That would free up an underutilized lane and make traffic better for everyone. Build more freeways and more lanes. The dream of mass transit must remain a dream. Computer programmers should make a game where mass transit advocates can fulfill their fantasies, actually Sim City 4 comes close, but what goes on in a game has to be separated from reality.

[cm]

benamery21: In my estimation, in our culture the individual "flexibility preference" (paraphrased from "time preference") esp. when it comes to getting around is such that it would take considerable levels of financial or traffic discomfort to accept the rigidities and constraints of the commitment at scale. Even if the "full information" were there.

[JeffF]

cm: "JeffF:..."

I was responding to only a small part of what you said, which suggested that car/sprawl works better than transit/density for a society with multiple workers per household and frequent job changes. I certainly agree that transit does not work well in suburbs designed and built exclusively for personal automobile transport.

However in the rest of this post contains some very questionable arguments.

For either automobile or transit the capacity that matters is the peak capacity. This is true for both the fixed infrastructure and the moving parts (roads/tracks & cars/buses/trains), however the moving car infrastructure used in off peak times is not fully used during peak times, so cars are worse in that regard.

There is a difference in that transit is at its best during peak times, and cars at their worse. The situation is reversed in the least traveled times.

As for the land area required for a bus system, simply compare it to the land area to expand the car transport system.

[cm]

JeffF: I think we are not disagreeing as much as it initially appeared. But I have seen transit systems operating close to capacity, and I'm unconvinced that those could handle substantially increased ridership, at conditions that "marginal" riders are willing to accept. At least in the case of rail, extending capacity is more difficult, if possible, than with buses.

That is an issue that I have the impression is often swept aside. (And as a side note, also in other domains people often underappreciate logistic constraints, limitations, and complexities.)

OTOH, here in the Bay Area, buses are ridiculously underutilized. In part that's because the route network is not very accessible (having to walk 10 min to the bus and then 10 min from at the destination, plus 10 min wait each time you have to change is already more than most car commutes in the valley). Replace 5 min, and it still mostly holds (of course that's with a generously built out road system). That's a general feature with "area coverage", even in Germany. And then I'm hearing you don't get transfer tickets but have to pay a new fee on each line.

I don't mean to be apologetic on account of individual road traffic. And of course pointing out potential problems should in no way mean something shouldn't be tried or won't work. It just means it's not a trivial no-brainer.

[reason]

I found this:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/uses/transportation.html

Not very detailed. Doesn't distinguish between "light trucks" that are mainly used as passenger transport and those that are mainly used for transporting goods. But it does suggest that heavy transport uses less energy than moving people. People should look into http://www.worldchanging.com/ . Seriously. I agree with the person who suggested that it would easier for the US to move to a non fossil fuel car based culture. But what is easier is not always better. There are OTHER reasons for moving away from cars. Cars are social poison. Look I prefer using public transport when I can. I am freer - I don't have to worry about where I can find a parking space, I can read on long stretches, I get to look at people, I have time to think, always more interesting than sitting in a box having to concentrate to avoid running into that idiot who cut across in front of me. And for young people and old people public transport is essential. We need to learn that public space is for people, not just cars. As the father of young children, you see (if you look) that cars are an enormous restraint on the freedom of children.

And Life and Death of Great American Cities - should be compulsory reading.

BJF - People are ignoring you because what you are saying is only personal prejudice and has nothing to do with public policy. Most people are discussing what ought to be, not what is. As for encouraging car pooling, in Australia what did work was transit lanes (lanes for buses and multiply occupied cars only).

[reason]

BJF...
In case you don't know in Australia it is quite common for people who work in the same or neighbouring offices to car pool. Car pooling is a voluntary and flexible arrangement. In Germany, there is even a growing movement of car sharing - several families sharing a car (which is a much more dramatic infringement of personal freedom). Your own anti-social tendencies shouldn't be projected onto other people.

[reason]

BJF...
And BJF you should realise that every car in the carpool lane is matched by one or more OTHER cars that are not using the road. Your ignorance of externalities amazes.

[Lafayette]

Cy: Anyway, most Europeans don't dwell in small houses, rather in small apartment buildings.

Small correction: Most Europeans dwell in rented residences . Well, maybe.

The percentage of EU owner-inhabited residences is fast approaching that of the US or the UK. Read the stats, here. Note also, however, that the stats are from 2002 -- not all that exact.

In terms of building personal net worth, I suggest that it is important, particularly with a view towards retirement, that people get off as soon as possible into home ownership. Of course, that also depends upon local conditions, amongst them cost of land (meaning population density) and fiscal inducements.

The UK and US, for historical reasons, have always led the pack, but the EU has made great inroads over the past few decades.

[Farrar]

Feng obviously doesn't like carpooling. That's your right Feng. But your criticisms don't make much sense.

Either you are very lazy or a rugged individualist - probably the latter, considering your regular comments.

My experience commuting from Marin to San Francisco 30 years ago was close to 100% positive. We were able to keep a carpool of 4 or 5 going harmoniously for nearly three years. And it probably continued longer after I left due to a transfer overseas. This enabled all of us to avoid buying a second car and to make considerable savings on gas and parking. Has the cooperative spirit disappeared in the US in favor of screw thy neighbor?

It required a bit of effort and compromise, but it was easily worth it. Overtime work was a bit of a problem, and sometimes required a Saturday trip to town. For a last minute urgency, I would call the day's driver, and tell him I would take the grizzly Greyhound home

This is far from an "ivory tower" thing; on the contrary it is a grass roots thing. A simple ad in the paper in those days always brought responses from like minded and well-located commuters. Nowadays it should be even easier to set up with internet websites, and I am sure that such exist.

And in those days we had no official encouragement such as toll-free passage, free parking, and special lanes for car poolers

Even a car pool with one other person is a winner. If only half your lonely drivers did this you could cut traffic density by close to a quarter. (debatable estimate, I realize, but the principle is still sound.)

[anne]

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/the_easy_cases.php

May 19, 2008

The Easy Cases
By Matthew Yglesias

Paul Krugman says: *

"Infrastructure is another problem. Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it's hard to justify transit systems unless there's sufficient population density, yet it's hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access."

This is all true enough, but before we try to run in terms of transit and infrastructure it makes sense to walk. Many Americans live in places where there is no transit infrastructure, and a healthy number of people live in places that just aren't well-suited to creating any such infrastructure. But it's a big country and some people already are living near transit infrastructure.

One piece of very low-hanging fruit is to promote denser development near our existing stations (instead of, e.g., bungalows and vacant lots near the Brookland Metro here in DC) which are often places where developers are clamoring to build and potential residents clamoring to live but incumbent property owners are trying to avoid sharing the wealth. Another opportunity is to improve service quality and frequency at things like our existing commuter rail lines. With gas prices rising, I bet a lot of Virginians are giving Virginia Railway Express a second look but they're probably discovering that it sucks. Making an existing commuter rail line more useful isn't brain surgery and doesn't involve any paradoxes or dilemmas, it just needs to be made a funding priority.

Last, it's always worth reiterating that while a lot of Americans live in genuinely low-density environments, many car-heavy parts of the U.S. are actually pretty dense. New Jersey is, as I've noted before, about as dense as the Netherlands which is one of the least driving-oriented countries. Los Angeles, too, though far from the densest city in the world is actually pretty dense and once featured a lot of transit in the form of streetcars while the well-designed Portland is hardly the second coming of Tokyo. If we start doing better with the relatively easy cases, that would create a more supportive environment for more difficult issues.

* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/opinion/19krugman.html

[reason]

BJF - Get it carpooling is good for YOU - it takes other cars off the road. It is like heterosexuals who freak out over homosexuality (i.e. totally irrational). Every man who is chasing another man is less competition. Get it! Your immediate emotional response is not necessarily a good guide for what is positive for you. Take that lesson to heart.

[Lafayette]

cm: Lafayette - You should know better than that. Europe has poverty because of "spending on the poor"?

I remarked that the EU still has its poor and meant, further, despite it's spending on a good safety net .

This statement is supportable by fact. See here

You will find that both Germany and the US are in the second decile, that is, 10 to 20% at or below the national poverty level. France is in the first decile, and it is the only one of the larger nations to be so in the EU. So, what is it doing right to be found in pole position? (Especially since there is a significant TV coverage here presently about how difficult it is for the poor to survive in France.)

So, I was a bit surprised when the statistic cited (25%) was mentioned on a TV nightly-news program (that issued from Germany, but we get in French). It was about German not French poverty.

Twenty-five percent of the German population may indeed be listed amongst the "precarious" (what you call "precariat") -- but that definition is entirely different. It means, in France, that they are young and cannot find a stable job.

The definition of precariousness, in the news program, centered upon the poor who cannot any longer make ends meet due to higher prices and stagnant retirement benefits.

So, we have a difference in definition, perhaps, or Germany poverty has shot up radically. I am not sure what to make of it.

[reason]

Laff
A bit OT isn't it?

[Farrar]

In fact, that car pool experience was 40 years ago, before the first oil crisis and even then we saved.

Since then, I have lived in cities with excellent to good public transport - London, Paris, Portland, OR, Bordeaux and even Beirut, and haven't needed to carpool. Good public transport is always preferable, but while waiting why not carpool.

Another possible solution is the coop taxi, as in the French West Indies, and in Beirut (at least some years ago. Cars or vans run along known routes. The passenger waits and flags one to a stop, announces his destination along the route and pays a proportionate fee. There is no particular schedule, but they run quite often. In areas where traffic won't support regular buses, this seems a good solution. It also a solution for some of the otherwise unemployable, as almost anyone can buy a van and set him/herself up as a coop taxi.

[Farrar]

Another type of carpool is occasionally proposed by someone who is ready to drive every day for a fee from his/her passengers -compromise beteen the classic carpool and the coop taxi.

But it appears that interest in this thread has faded - either too early or too late - story of my life.

[Lafayette]

Transit systems, for the purposes of tanking people to/from a workplace, seem to be a great waste aside from being a real polluter.

Given the technology today, it is also unnecessary. Office locations (for a large company) can be set up in the periphery (of any large urban center) and people can select the one that suits their local commute.

The technology to provide office workers with a Virtual Office Environment (VOE) is there today and will be enhanced tomorrow (meaning that one can work from home). Why any business should be sending people across the US willy-nilly is wasteful expenditure, really. Meetings can be held on line, not in the way we are used to, but in a way we can easily get used to.

Of course, the workplace is also a social environment. The changes will take a great deal of getting used to, since it replaces the physical with the virtual interface.

The deployment of the VOE will enhance productivity significantly, as it has in the past two decades. IBM put a cap on coast-to-coast travel in order to spur on-line video conferencing in the 1980s (as I recall). It was expensive (due to the television links), but less expensive yet than air travel (plus accommodations).

[german_reader]

@Lafayette

A bit off topic, but nevertheless ( I don't want to capture Mark Thoma's thread for another issue, I do it anyway. ).

Poverty in Germany is defined analog to the EU definition as:

"The share of persons with an equivalised disposable income below the risk-of-poverty threshold, which is set at 60 % of the national median equivalised disposable income (after social transfers)." ( per capita )

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=1996,39140985&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&screen=detailref&language=en&product=STRIND_SOCOHE&root=STRIND_SOCOHE/socohe/sc022

The 26%, you've mentioned, are before social transfers. But some social payments such as pensions are already counted:

"The share of persons with an equivalised disposable income, before social transfers, below the risk-of-poverty threshold, which is set at 60 % of the national median equivalised disposable income (after social transfers). Retirement and survivor's pensions are counted as income before transfers and not as social transfers."

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=1996,39140985&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&screen=detailref&language=en&product=STRIND_SOCOHE&root=STRIND_SOCOHE/socohe/sc021

In the U.S. poverty is defined as:

"The official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and does not include capital gains or noncash benefits (such as public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps).

Income
used to compute
poverty status:

* Money income

o Includes earnings, unemployment compensation, workers’ compensation, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, public assistance, veterans’ payments, survivor benefits, pension or retirement income, interest, dividends, rents, royalties, income from estates, trusts, educational assistance, alimony, child support, assistance from outside the household, and other miscellaneous sources.

o Noncash benefits (such as food stamps and housing subsidies) do not count.

o Before taxes.

o Excludes capital gains or losses.

o If a person lives with a family, add up the incomeof all family members. (Non-relatives, such as housemates, do not count.)"

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/povdef.htm

So while Europe uses a relative definition of poverty after taxes and social transfers, adjusted for family size, the U.S. uses absolute poverty thresholds before taxes - which can reduce poverty in the U.S. further ( EITC ) -, adjusted for family size and after most social transfers.

How you define poverty is very important and can influence the poverty rate a lot:

http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032003/rdcall/2_001.htm

But even with these alternative measures, poverty in the U.S. seems to have been higher in the past than in Germany ( especially in West-Germany ) - in an absolute, not only relative sense

Inequality in market income in Germany is and was always very similar to the United States. What has reduced poverty and inequality in Germany in the past more than in the United States was a massive redistribution of income through taxes and social transfers. This obviously now comes to an end as a consequence of the neoliberal "reforms". The traditional downward redistribution of income is currently more and more replaced by an upwards redistribution typical for supply-side "reforms". One of the reasons mass incomes in Germany have fallen for years and poverty is rising.

This isn't reflected adequately in the poverty rate. The problem is the relative definition. While in the previous official "report on poverty and wealth" in 2003 the at-risk-of-poverty limit was defined as 938 euros net income per month, it is now 786 euros a month ( not inflation adjusted! ). And because poverty is defined as 60% median disposable income you get the fascinating effect that if median incomes declines ( from 1563 euros to 1310 euros per capita net income / month ) the poverty limit also falls.

That hides the tectonic shift in the income distribution we've seen here in Germany for several years now. Most households up to the upper middle class have seen stagnant or falling incomes for the last five-six years and wages and salaries as a share of national income are 7-8% below the historical trend ( equals 140-150 billion euros, that's a lot in a midsize country as Germany ). And more and more people come into a precarious situation.

[reason]

Paine

the relative size of all these
peak oil
nite mare scenarios
needs a good airing out

I think that is money illusion. Most of the peak oilers believe the problem is absolute shortage not price. We won't be able to continue to do what we do today at the rate we do it today, let alone increase it. That is, the technology we have will become useless and will all have to be replaced, and we are running short of resources to make the technological replacement. Alex Steffan says in brilliantly in the foreward to the print version of World Changing (sorry I can't find an electronic version).

Alex Steffan, by the way thinks that making our built environment denser is the most significant response we can make to resource shortage and global warming.

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007800.html

Not to forget that small relative price movements can have big effects on some people at the margins.

[Farrar]

Start tomorrow -
www.carpoolworld.com

[btg]

I have seen the future, and the future is....Cuba!

Not really, but in Cuba, they do not have car pooling as such, but to make up for the overstreesed bus system, owners of private cars are essentially forced to pick up hitchikers - except this is organised.

During peak hours, at bus stops on major roads and highways, there are government police who flag over any car with only one or two occupants - they are forced to pick up people who are waiting for the bus.

Back here in Canada, I remeber a few years ago there was a service that was similar to hitchhiking - ridesharing - people going on long trips by car (toronto to montreal) and people wanting rides could find each other - the company making the connection got a fee, and the person getting the ride helped to pay for gas etc. - less than the cost of a bus.

In short, there are ways of making more efficent use of the private auto.

However, the key is really to design cities properly - not for public transit, but for WALKING! This does not mean banning cars, but designing at medium/high density, low rise buildings with trasitional streets - carrying the "new urbanism" to its extreme.

This whole thing shows the shortcomings of private enterprise and the need for government regulation and proper tax policies. A "can of worms" suburban road allowance created by a developer now for big suburban homes will likely be there for decades, if not forever - just as the roads today in downtowns of major cities are little changed from 100 or 200 years ago. Today's suburbia is tomoorws city centre. Governments have to plan very long term - wheras develoers only think about the immediate marketability of the buildings and lots they create.

[Sarah]

BJ Feng says...How much is walking around in your private backyard eden worth? We can grow tomatoes, carrots, and basil on our land if we wish, only those living in the countryside of Europe can say the same.

I don't know about other European countries (although I've heard Holland is similar) but Czechs tend to spend their holidays and weekends at their country cottages. The paper today says that 40% of those surveyed expect to spend all or most of their six weeks of vacation at the cottage this summer. Of course some of these are rented or borrowed from friends and family members, but you can easily see that the numbers are significant by the traffic patterns: every Friday, as soon as spring begins there are huge traffic jams of people leaving town to go to their country cottages. Unlike the US, where Friday is party night, Prague is pretty much empty, except for the tourists and the unfortunates who have to stay in town to serve them.

EU statistics show Czech homeownership levels are considerably lower than in the US (I can't remember the figure, but I know it's less than 50%), however this refers to primary residence only. The statistics don't reflect the many, like my brother-in-law, who are busily insulating and installing plumbing in preparation for moving to their cottages full time when they retire.

I can't, myself, think of a much more idyllic lifestyle than having a conveniently located apartment close to your work in a major city and a cottage with a garden to escape to on the weekends.

[anne]

http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Bike/2008.htm

May 12, 2008

Bicycles Pedaling Into the Spotlight
By J. Matthew Roney

The world produced an estimated 130 million bicycles in 2007—more than twice the 52 million cars produced. Bicycle and car production tracked each other closely in the mid-to-late 1960s, but bike output separated sharply from that of cars in 1970, beginning its steep climb to 105 million in 1988. Following a slowdown between 1989 and 2001, bike production has regained steam, increasing in each of the last six years. Much of the recent growth has been driven by the rise in electric, or "e-bike" production, which has doubled since 2004 to 21 million units in 2007. Overall, since 1970, bicycle output has nearly quadrupled, while car production has roughly doubled.

Promoting the bike as a clean and efficient alternative to the personal automobile is a practical way for cities to reduce traffic congestion and smog. To simultaneously confront those problems as well as climate change and an emerging obesity epidemic, government leaders and advocacy groups are working to bring cycling back to prominence in the urban transport mix.

A number of European cities have set the standard for bicycle use and promotion, via pro-bike transportation and land use policies, as well as heavy funding for bicycle infrastructure and public education. In Copenhagen, for example, 36 percent of commuters bike to work. The city plans to invest more than $200 million in bike facilities between 2006 and 2024 and estimates that by 2015 half its residents will bike to work or school. In Amsterdam, cycling accounts for 55 percent of journeys to jobs that are less than 7.5 kilometers (4.7 miles) from home. The government has pledged to spend $160 million from 2006 to 2010 on bicycle paths, parking, and safety. And Freiburg, Germany, a city with 218,000 people, has allocated roughly $1.3 million annually for cycling since 1976; now some 70 percent of local trips there are made by bike, on foot, or by public transit.... *

* http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Bike/2008_data.htm

[reason]

Sarah,
we, like many people in Europe have a garden on the edge of town we can use on weekends. It is about 3 km from our residence.

[reason]

I find that many Americans really are clueless about the rest of the world.

[reason]

BJF...
Don't let it bother you, we appreciate you hanging around making an easy target of yourself. Not really your home territory this urban planning stuff is it?

[OhNoNotAgain]

BJ seems to be emblematic of the Republican mindset here in the US. Their new slogan should be:

"Nah, it's too hard"

Of course, for most normal people it's not too hard because it's either pay for the gas or the food/rent/mortgage/clothes, and sometimes you need to eat and stay warm.

[Holly W.]

"Nah, it's too hard"

This is the mindset my husband and I call "good old American no-how and can't do." ;-)

[cm]

Lafayette: Well, "which is why" sounds pretty much like attributed causation to me, as opposed to "even so".

[cm]

Lafayette: "Precariat" is a synthesis of "precarious" and "proletariat". I didn't invent the term. The proper "German" spelling is "Prekariat".

[Sarah]

reason says...

I find that many Americans really are clueless about the rest of the world.

reason-- In our defense, it's hard not to be. The amount of international coverage in the media is pathetic-- confined to the 'hot spot' of the moment. Very few journalists are stationed abroad anymore, and I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number that both live in the country they cover and speak the language. Combine that with 2 weeks of vacation a year and you have very little chance that even the best informed are going to know much. Of course the tendency of many Americans to hear any praise of another country as a slight on their own doesn't help.

[Lafayette]

cm: Well, "which is why" sounds pretty much like attributed causation to me, as opposed to "even so".

De gustibus non disputandum.

What else can I say ... ? ;^)

[Lafayette]

reason: Not really your home territory this urban planning stuff is it?

Wow! Now, THERE'S a pun on words!

[Lafayette]

sarah: I can't, myself, think of a much more idyllic lifestyle than having a conveniently located apartment close to your work in a major city and a cottage with a garden to escape to on the weekends.

I can. The reverse!

I'd rather spend the weekends in town. Preferably a town in which most prefer to do as you ... ;^)

[Bawdyscot]

cm,

You might have missed my point. I am not enamoured with much of the Midwest and California coming to Arizona with the intent to find whatever it is they are looking for. The Phoenix area is a great example of the problems outlined in this thread. Sprawl, the car culture, money grubbing developers. I have seen hundreds of square miles of beautiful desert destroyed just so that some can have stucco covered red-tiled roof matchboxes for their very own. The worst part about it is that they bring their politics, love of plush green lawns and crappy chain restaurants with them. I wish the Californians would stay in California and the Midwesterners would stay in the Midwest. Will it happen? Of course not, but I can always wish, no?

[cm]

Lafayette: Huh? The meaning of common phrases is not a matter of taste.