Kent Lundberg passes along a Tumblr site – By the Motorway – devoted to images of a cityscape resulting from car dependence. In this case, Auckland, New Zealand:
And a quote:
Members of the House, I invite you to walk along upper Symonds Street in Auckland at 8 p.m. at night and look over the tarmac-covered landscape that is nearly empty of anything at all. That is some of the most valuable land in our city, yet it is not used for an economically productive use most of the time. It is not used for commerce, trade, dwellings, or recreation. We have given over huge amounts of highly valuable land in our towns and cities to our transport system, and the traffic engineers and transport economists who do the modelling and evaluation of these projects never include this massive opportunity cost in the assessment of projects.
Turns out Genter’s a Californian transplant, but it’s great to hear the same economic angle popping up around the world.
I compared land use in Burnaby and Paris here http://stroadtoboulevard.tumblr.com/post/27437308390/land-use-choices Paul HIllsdon thought I was being unfair, that Burnaby will naturally mature with time. Given single-use and setback regulations, and poor use of government/publicly-owned rights of way, I doubt it.