BREAKING: Obama Says Building Sprawl Stops Now!
From Green Car Congress:
Responding to a question from a city councilwoman about transportation and infrastructure in the stimulus bill during a town hall forum in Ft. Myers, Florida, President Obama said that the days of just building sprawl are over.
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From a transcript provided by Transportation for America:
Not only do we need to rebuild our roads, our bridges, our ports, our levies, our dams, but we also have to plan for the future. This is the same example of turning crisis into opportunity…Now, look, this is America. We always had the best infrastructure. We were always willing to invest in the future. Governor Crist mentioned Abraham Lincoln. In the middle of the Civil War, in the midst of all this danger and peril, what did he do? He helped move the intercontinental railroad. He helped start land grant colleges. He understood that even when you’re in the middle of crisis, you’ve got to keep your eye on the future. So transportation is not just fixing our old transportation systems but its also imaging new transportation systems.
That’s why I’d like to see high speed rail where it can be constructed. That’s why I would like to invest in mass transit because potentially that’s energy efficient and I think people are alot more open now to thinking regionally in terms of how we plan our transportation infrastructure. The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats, everybody recognizes that that’s not a smart way to build communities. So we should be using this money to help spur this kind of innovative thinking when it comes to transportation. That will make a big difference.
Awesome news. As a resident of South Florida, I have watched in HORROR as developer after developer has pushed to build into the Everglades. Even now, in a down housing and construction market, Lennar is lobbying to get the development line moved further West, further into Miami’s fresh water supplies.
Go get ‘em, Obama!!
Yes! What we need is an even larger amount of money spend on government programs!
I say, when government interaction has caused our economic and political systems to come to near collapse, the answer is MORE GOVERNMENT!
Huzzah!
@Jakejzg
I think there are plenty of people on both sides of the political fence who don’t think the current economic problems were caused by government interaction. If anything, you might be able to blame government IN-action!
That said, anything that keeps Lennar and their creepy ilk from building into the Everglades is made of win.
Really Jo? So Janet Reno forcing Freddie and Fannie to take those bad loans was not at the heart of this? That is most definitely government action. I am all for saving the Everglades, but this bloating of the government beast scares me silly.
So long as we keep allowing illegal immigration to continue unabated, the “growth for growth’s sake” mentality will continue to drive urban sprawl. If you think uncontrolled immigration doesn’t affect rental markets, home prices, etc. you are simply ignorant. To not support illegal immigration is not racism - it is sanity. We need to control population growth in all its facets to protect natural resources, help unskilled American workers find jobs and allow increased immigration levels on LEGAL terms. Otherwise, this statement by Obama is just runaway optimism with no meaning or truth to it.
While I dislike sprawl intensely, this sure seems like a states rights issue …
Screw that. Am I supposed to live in the crime ridden city next to the crack house, just because Obama feels we need to stop sprawl. No frakkin way.
The Fed is mismanaging the one rail system it has directly under it’s control (Amtrak). Why the hell would we want to put them in charge of another one?
@Doug
I’m sorry but you’re misinformed. The banks didn’t have to be forced to give out subprime mortgages, it was profitable for them to do so. They gave loans to anything with a pulse, then securitized them and sold them off to other banks and investors. They made a lot of money off of this strategy for a while. Now that they finally realizes securities backed by subprime mortgages are worthless, everyone is clamoring for a bailout.
The real cause was lack of oversight by the SEC and the last two decades of deregulation (under republican administrations) that allowed banks to gamble with America’s wealth the way they have.
This is a typical Obama sound bite. It sounds good, but has NO specifics that can be used as a measuring objective.
This Harvard graduate, born in Kenya, and raised a Muslim in Indonesia is a fantastic speaker. He can keep the audience transfixed on his words for hours while saying absolutely nothing.
Amtrak fails because no one uses it. No one uses it because the routes and services suck. The routes and services suck because of urban sprawl and the American car-culture.
This is how we lower our dependence on foreign oil. This is how we lower carbon emissions. This is how we help homeowners save money that would be spent on insurance and gas.
The “crack house” exists, indirectly because of poor urban planning and sprawl. When Americans return to the cities and make them places to live instead of abandoning them for the exurbs there will be more police presence and smaller area to patrol.
This is what America sorely needs. Not offshore drilling. Not ethanol. This.