Public purpose / Wendell Cox

Link: http://www.publicpurpose.com/

"Urban rail is an effective strategy for controlling traffic congestion where residential population densities are very high and where there are extremely large and dense central business districts. Examples are Tokyo, New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong. The Public Purpose is not opposed to urban rail. The Public Purpose is opposed to waste and deception. ...

One of the principal reasons that "smart growth" or "compact city" urban strategies cannot reach their objective of reducing traffic congestion (or reducing its growth) is that there is a strong positive relationship between higher population density and higher traffic volumes.* ...

Cox noted that he considered it to be a "badge of honor to be on such a distinguished list," though indicated that Sprawlwatch had "rather exaggerated" the facts by characterizing him and others on the list as "pro-sprawl." He indicated that a more accurate characterization would have been "pro-American Dream." "

Cox and his sites publicpurpose.com and demographia.com are apologists for suburb-style, car-oriented development. This makes sense if your goal is "preservation of the american dream." Carfreeuniverse.org is for people who have grown up with that american dream, or otherwise experienced more of it than they would care to.

I'm no fan of being a daily dependent of public transit. I almost want to say my ideal carfree city is Fez, but as I value freedom from others' use of amplified sound and others' abusive screaming at eachother, and noise from other motorized things, as well as access to wild nature, and I've not been to Fez, I cannot say for sure. But Fez does not have public transit.

Also: in a wholly anarcho-capitalist system, there would be no taxpayer funding of anything, including roads. And government building and maintaining of roads is partly what got us into the mess of the American dream.

Cox runs several discussion lists:

Transport Policy -- Direct to http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/transport-policy/
Urban Policy -- direct to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/urban-policy/

You might also enjoy David Brooks' Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia or try google

"Our" is a presumption.

Added by colin #442 on 2004-04-10. Last modified 2004-04-10 16:31. F0 License: Attribution
Location: World, United States
Topics: discussion list, pro-car

Colin Leath <>

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	Public purpose / Wendell Cox, by colin on 2004-05-21 05:18:03
	Here's a response to Wendell Cox by G.B. ARRINGTON, PARSONS BRINKERHOFF QUADE & DOUGLAS, INC. on the Center for Transportation Excellence site. See also carbuster's #15.

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