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.
I live in Arizona, and the main industry here is GROWTH. Yes that’s correct, GROWTH. NOT construction, NOT tourism, NOT industry, NOT real estate (especially now) but GROWTH, for the sake of GROWTH(and the construction/home development industry).
We have lots and lots (literally) of commercial and residential buildings sitting vacant. A professional plaza was completed about a year ago one block from where I live, and there are NO lessors in it; NONE.
A lot of the illegals are going back home because AZ cannot sustain this unlimited GROWTH as we have in the past, even with our low prices (and cheap non-union labor) because no one is buying or renting.
In the past we were able to wait it out until economic times improved, but those were mere bumps in the road (1988-92 comes to mind) but now???
Want to fix sprawl. Fix crime in the cities.
@Doug
Sorry, Doug - I normally agree with many of your points, but I think you’re wrong here. The housing loans went bad because of people like my friend “J”, who over-extended himself by using equity loans taken against the house his father left him to buy other pre-constriction properties, then “flip” the homes. I know otherwise decent people from middle-class up, who really could not afford to lose the money they were gambling, but who were so blinded by greed that they moved forward anyway.
These people wanted to get something for nothing, and got burned. MANY people I talked to, even fairly wealthy educated people, actually believed (2 years ago) that real estate COULD NOT GO DOWN IN VALUE.
That second type of people were NOT students of history, and that first type deserved what they could get. The banks giving both sets of people credit should have known better, and you are 100% right about something else: Reno and Clinton CERTAINLY played a role in making home loans so easy to get, but they passed those bills in a Repbulican House and Senate, so let’s not get blame-crazy just yet.
@jpm100
You have a SOLID point about crime rates in the inner cities, but a good bit of that has to do with local city governments and police presence. Simply: there is no budget to properly police those areas and give the worst offenders Serious beat-downs to catch on tape, post on YouTube as “M3GAP4WNAG3!!” and amuse us all.
If you start moving some high-paying jobs into the city, the tax base will go up, more money can be spent on police presence, education, and youth programs - from there, the nice shops and trendies move in and crime goes down. Ex.: South Beach, the Flats at Cleveland, Boy’s Town in Chicago, etc.
@Jane - I use Amtrak whenever possible. It’s never failed me. (yet)
last I checked, most mass transit was either LESS efficient or at best break-even in terms of per-rider measurements, since the mass transit systems require more fuel consumption for the increased weight especially when they are empty
what is the plan here, anyway? are taxes and penalties on single rider vehicles in order? are we going to have the government regulate that we shall all live in Soviet-style apartments so that the government transit will be most efficient? welcome to Obama’s new and improved NoKo
So much for the value of a Harvard and Columbia education: Lincoln sponsored the transcontinental railroad.
“Intercontinental,” for anyone with, y’know, a basic understanding of prefixes, means “between continents.”
The one is going to tell me where I can live? By the way how much is the ALGore making off of repower america?
Yep, awesome. Just what we need even more $%$#% federal government intervention in our lives.
Want to control sprawl, get involved in local politics, don’t grovel for the feds to save you!
Sheesh. Anyone who believes this nation wrecker better nab a second mortgage on their second mortgage — quick like.