 | World Crude Oil Production Forecast using Current Fields and Future Megaprojects | The Oil Drum | Classic TOD:NYC |  |
Search The Oil Drum with Google
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Local
- Streets: Utilitarian Corridors or Livable Public Space
- Summer Streets a Success!
- Plan for Hydro-Fracture Drilling for Unconventional Natural Gas in Upstate New York
TOD:Europe
- Oilwatch Monthly - November 2008
- The 2008 IEA WEO - Production Decline Rates
- The EU Strategic Energy Review: maybe not so depressing after all
TOD:Canada
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
- Oil Megaproject Update (July 2008)
TOD:ANZ
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- The Energy Blog
- Entropy Production
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- Calculated Risk
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
“What people need to hear loud and clear is that we're running out of energy in America.”
—George W. Bush, May 2001
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Prof. Goose, Heading Out, Stuart Staniford, Nate Hagens
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Gail the Actuary, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Khebab, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Local: Glenn
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Technician: Super G
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
In my opinion, one of the biggest problems with most suburbs is the lack of sidewalks; it is often just not safe to walk. I grew up in a town with sidewalks and by the age of eight was turned loose to pretty much walk and bike where I wanted to, so long as Mom knew where I was and that I'd be back for lunch. Then, in a horrible experience, when I was nine the family moved to a ritzy California suburb, and my freedom was gone. Not long thereafter I was hit by a car while walking home from school in the street. Indeed, the authorities at school refused to let me walk home, and I was forced to ride the bus (which I got around by taking the stinky bus to the first stop and then walking the rest of the way home).
In older towns and cities it was and is routine for many children to walk to school--seldom if ever is that the case in the suburbs. I know one ten year old girl who has to get on the bus for twenty minutes to go the two hundred yards from where she lives across the road to school--not safe to walk.
All true.
I grew up in a small town in northern New Jersey during the 1950s and was never more than six blocks away from either grammar or high school. I used to come home for lunch practically everyday, something that is quite atypical these days.
It's not just the growth of new suburbs that has done away with this sort of environment, but also the trend towards consolidating several small local schools into a giant regional school, a move which makes busing just about mandatory. School desegregation in urban areas (though a worthy goal) has had much the same effect.
I wish we would return to small local schools, but I doubt this will happen any time soon.
There is actually an active movement to re-establish small neighborhood schools. See for instance the National Association of Realtors' magazine, On Common Ground, Winter 2005. The effort is helped by support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the fact that small schools have better performance records. See in particular the article Of Sprawl Schools and Small Schools.
Another factor that makes suburbs unwalkable is that the street patterns are deliberately designed to be disconnected, with every street ending in a cul de sac. You might live a half mile from school as the crow flies, but it could be a two mile walk to get out of the maze of cul de sacs, out onto the dangerous arterial, and to the school campus (after cutting through 5 acres of school parking). Why did the suburbs develop that way? See Connectivity Part II: Historical Background for the story.
Isn't (d)efficiency wonderful?
exactly, no sidewalks.
Last time I was there we had to use the car to go to the library on the same block!!! It was either that or playing the risky sport of walking with the cars (or through the woods). With a sidewalk it would be less that 5 minutes.
We also saw police stop a couple people who walked on the street.
I had no idea this was happening. I recall about 1971 I would walk to 2nd Grade on Kadena Air Base in Okinawa over several fairly steep hills. It must have been over a mile. Air bases have very little traffic except at the main gates. Security was never a problem. In 1975 I used a bicycle for a longer distance to get from Travis Air Base to a public school in Fairfield, CA.
Wow, no wonder the kids are getting so tubby.