[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > COMMENT: At least in the prairie provinces it is not urban sprawl which > made the car necessary. First came wagons and horse power and smaller > farms with many small towns, but with increased efficiency in agriculture > farms increased in size and farmers migrated to other parts often cities. I don't know about the spatial history of Canada, but I have read a bit on the U.S. Here speculators took up huge tracks of land forcing farmers to move further West, creating sprawl. > Ken also asks: Are you a Ghandian or something? Not at all, in the strict sense, but I do think that we could go a great way toward simplifying our lives. I mentioned this idea before: Illich, Ivan. 1974. Energy and Equity (NY: Harper and Row). 18-9: "The typical American male devotes more than 1600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it is idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly installments. He works to pay for petrol tolls, insurance, taxes, and traffic tickets. He spends four out of sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering his resources for it. And this figure does not take into account the time consumed by other activities dictated by transport; time spent in hospitals, traffic courts, and garages: time spent watching automobile commercials or attending consumer meetings to improve the quality of the next buy. The model American puts in 16,000 hours to get 7500 miles; less than 5 miles per hour." > The car certainly makes larger sized farms and fewer small centres more > practical. Are you saying this was a negative development? Are you a Ghandian > or something?! I am not talking of hobby farms around an urban area, I am > talking of bona fide farmers in an area where a section (a square mile) is > not a large farm and where neighbours may be a couple of miles away. In > ranching areas distances are much greater. > In response to: > > They are neithether a toy nor even a luxury. > > When the nearest intercity bus service may be at a town 20 or 30 miles away > > and when the nearest doctor may that distance or further and when major > > shopping centres may be twice that a car may be necessity. > Perelman notes: > Sounds like an argument for public transportation. > > COMMENT: Certainly it is in part an argument for public transportation. Indeed > with respect to school transportation the problem is solved in this manner. > However, the costs of regular public transport to sparsely populated would be > prohibitive and do not solve the problem of having to go to x place for a part, > to go to the doctor for immediate treatment etc.etc. and it certainly does not > address the necessity to transport goods via truck to elevators or stockyards > or railheads. Some provinces such as Saskatchewan, under the CCF did develop > solutions along the lines you suggest. Saskatchewan has a provincially owned > bus service that gave regular service to virtually every village and hamlet in > the province, but with pressures to reduce subsidies and for market viability > and with rural depopulation adequate public transportation seems to be a thing > of the past. > Cheers, Ken Hanly -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
