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91 comments on Why does driving too much make you poorer?

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Glenn on January 15, 2006 - 9:06am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
I've always thought that transportation = business, but distance (VMT) might not be the best determinant (and it might not matter if it is mass transit or automobile). I think your trends would be much better if you were able to separate urban, suburban and rural areas. It's not just density too, how they are organized really matters. Some parts of New York City have the density suburbs and people drive a lot. On the other hand, many towns in upstate NY are decidedly rural, but they have a nearby town that can service all their needs instead of a Walmart 75 miles away.
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sekiyu on January 15, 2006 - 9:36am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Since GDP and related measures are concerned with transactions period rather than whether they reflect services efficiently delivered (eg, mass transit versus the private auto), the wasteful places should - all things being equal - have more robust results. On the other hand, believers in agglomeration economies and smart governance would likely not be surprised (indeed, they'd be thrilled) to see some correlation between lots of driving and lower economic output. Putting infrastructure (roads, sewers, etc) out to distant and lower-density suburbs costs more and thus perhaps detracts from more productive public investment. Moreover, when people are driving out to suburbs, they're not downtown exchanging ideas, consuming services, and otherwise helping to support vibrant urban cores. And the attendant traffic congestion has real costs, as a 2003 Deloitte study notes:
http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/research/0,2310,sid%253D1000%2526cid%253D28906,00.html
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