A few years ago, I received some international visitors to my office in DC - I work as an architect for a national non-profit entity which advocates preservation and revitalization.  The international visitors from one of the Baltic republics of the former Soviet Union were two young men in their late 20'/early 30's and they were being shepherded around the USA to see how we do real estate/urban/suburban development.   Their trip had included Houston, Los Angeles, and probably Phoenix - essentially all the car-dominated cities of the American southwest.  Their American handlers were working for the US State Department or one of our international development agencies.

When I heard of the cities they had visited, I told them to be very careful about the 1950's American suburban model - single family detached houses of low density, car-only transportation on freeways, and separation of land uses & building types.  I said that if they followed this model, they would find themselves trapped in their cars without alternative transit options or those at home would be trapped in their houses without shopping or other attractions close at hand.

I said that they should think about extending their tramlines out suburban boulevards and line the boulevards with medium height buildings with commercial use on lower floors and apartments above.  On the blocks behind the boulevards, I said place the smaller apartment buildings and then townhouses and then semi-detached houses.  Finally, beyond the semi-detached housing one could find other housing options for those with more means.  I said that you would really want to provide options for housing and transportation.   These fellows came from a country with some significant historic urban centers and the US handlers, I thought, were presenting a failed 1950's model for development.  The model I was describing really can be found in many 1920's neighborhoods around American cities - if the transit lines have survived.   I did not even get into the matters of energy and resource use.

The poverty of one nation should not be the problems for the rest of the world.  The last thing our country needs to worry about is how to solve poverty in some retarded hick-ass nation.  I do not believe that we can expect to help ourselves to success when all we do is worry about those small, forgotten and helpless countries.  Therefore I HATE AMERICANS!!!  Ameircans only care about helping other small and stupid countries.  It's not our business to help in aid to countries that we blow to smithereens, when was the last time we did that?  Iraq???  No, I think it was WWII when we bombed the hell out of Japan, and just went into save them.  Where's the spirit in that?  What has this nation come to???  We need to be thinking more about ourselves, and bettering our situation.  I HATE AMERICANS THEIR ALL THE SAME!!!

Your ideas insult me. Everything you say makes me cringe. You barely even commented on the article. Bastard. I think you need to be on the other end of the nuclear warhead. You need to be blown to "smitherines." If only your intelligence measured up to the sheer idiotic opinion you portray, you might actually be respectable.

Opinions are like assholes; everybody has one, and they all stink.

One more comment like the three above and you both will be banned.

   I think that the situation is bleak in some ways, but there are many positive aspects, too.  One of  the points about the Kyoto treaty is that developing nations, while not wanting to be restricted, indicated a hunger for cleaner technology.  Many of them know that leapfroggint to sustainability is their hope for long term success.

   The devil is in the details.  How to get there?  It seems that many scientists and government officials know that the American model is a failed one.  But what then?  It is tough trying to build your own models when the airwaves are full of McDonalds and Humvees.  

   More than once, my students (in China) have indicated to me a belief that all Americans life in mini-mansions with spacious gardens and swimming pools.  They got their information from Hollywood.  When I tell them otherwise, some of them think I am lying.

   One hopeful sign is that the EU nations are spending time and money on sustainable projects in the developing world (the US is MIA, or maybe DOA).  And countries and people are struggling to get there.

   America needs to export technology, and consider importing models itself (grin).

Patrick

Governments can become involved in the force to create cleaner technology, the fact of the matter is they don't know when to leave it to those who are paid to do it. We have the technology to create hydrogen cars but we don't see them being mass produced for the average American's salary because we'd be putting politicians's buddies out of the job with oil companies. To state it simply, we need to government's blessing and funding, but then we just need to be left to our own devices to fix things.

(Curious, n'est-ce pas, how this thread has performed a Lazarus leap.)

A month ago George Kinen added his own very interesting observation, on urban development and transportation, with a background on how they have been handled in the Southwest.  Having lived a year in Santa Fe, I know what he is talking about.

As a New Yorker, I assumed (please do not laugh, as those New Mexicans once laughed) that public transportation would be available to take me in a not unreasonable amount of time to wherever I needed to go.  Santa Fe indeed has bus service, but it does not run often, and it does not go everywhere.  So, I bought a (cheap, unreliable, in fact life-threatening) bicycle.

A few bends in the river, and I am back in NYC.  Here too, the bicycle is the preferred means of transportation, not because you cannot get where you want to go any other way, but because a bike gets you there more quickly.  For those who do not know NYC, driving on the avenues, north and south, can go pretty well; not smooth sailing, but it moves.  Driving on the streets, east and west, on the other hand, is like the Russians taking Grozny.  So again, for different reasons though, a bicycle is the best way to travel.

I would not be surprised, therefore, if the "Southern" concept of bicycle rickshaws, so prominent in South and East Asia, will be developed (further; they have barely started) in North American cities.

Ideally, traffic in NYC should be eliminated, or anyway reduced.  I do not know if anybody here is working in that direction.  It would be wonderful if we could follow the apparently successful example of London, in reducing center-city traffic congestion.  I do know that business interests here are hideously huge, and will prevent anything that looks like a restriction of their ability to do business.  Clearly what we need is an enlightened Mussolini, who will un-clog our streets.

So yes, in that regard I agree with our authors, wise government, enlightened government, should have a strong hand.