The Oil Drum

96 comments on Some Congressional Action on Energy?

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AlanfromBigEasy on April 16, 2007 - 10:09pm

Everybody wanted and used personal transportation even before the automobile

Untrue.

I live in the Lower Garden District, the upper middle class area when developed 1830s-1860 (I live in a second building on the lot, built 1890). One can still see the occasional marble step imbedded into the sidewalk to make it easier to mount into a carriage (about 1/block). Presumeably, this was for a taxi of the day. There is only one carriage house extant in the district (but multiple slave quarters).

The Garden District was the home of millionaires (in 1840 silver and gold dollars !) and many of the homes look it ! Yet (and I have counted) perhaps 1/8th have evidence of a carriage house.

Why ?

The St. Charles Streetcar Line opened in 1834 (later the Prytania and Magazine lines as well). Plus a supremely walkable neighborhood.

Best Hopes,

Alan

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econguy on April 18, 2007 - 9:03am

First you build the railroad, and then you build the neighborhood around it. Then everyone is within walking distance of the train. This was the pattern of "suburban" development pre-Henry Ford.

If you go to urban areas in the rest of the developed world -- Paris, Milan, Frankfurt, Oslo, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. -- people may still have cars but most of the transportation is done by train or sometimes bus. They only drive the cars every other weekend. That's one reason why the rest of the developed world uses 50% the energy-per-capita than people in the US. They aren't shivering in the dark either.