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Originally Posted by VivienM
In other words, start living like socialistic Europeans.
That's just not going to happen, at least for as long as there is democracy in North America.
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Umm... that's just silly. Tony Blair, Jaques Chirac and Merkle (forgot her first name) and and were democratically elected. In fact if you want to get techincal about it Britain and California are probably more democratic than most places because they have mechanisms to remove unpopular officials from office. In Britian, Parliament can have a vote of no confidence, throwing out the PM and absolving his cabinet of ministers. In California, they have a recall referendum (as we all remember).
How we fund highways in this country is an extremely socialistic. The government pays for the original capital expendature (billions of dollars) and all we have to pay is a pentenence of the maintanence costs with a gasoline tax. Right now we have enough state and federal highway in this country to pave a road to the moon and back 10 times and congestion continues to get worse.
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Originally Posted by Saturn69
That's all fine and dandy, but I live in a rural area and commute to the city. The only jobs in rural areas are fast-food, convenience store or farming, so I drive to the city. Why not move to the city? Well, higher property taxes, higher home prices, higher crime, and more closely packed neighbors. Sure, it's a choice for me to live where I live. When the kids are out of school I intend to sell the house and move to the city, but I will NOT raise my kids in the Omaha/Council Bluffs area. Besides, the view from my deck of the sun setting over the Iowa hills is just too nice to replace with the view of the next door neighbor's house. So, until then, see y'all on the Interstate in the A.M..
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I understand the concerns of the rural and suburban communities about losing access to cities, and about them losing their importance in American culture. I'm not advocating moving people out of the homes and back into the cities.
What I am proposing is that we concentrate growth into the urban centers to reduce future congestion on the freeways which you travel. I'm also proposing to build rail to suburban communities and to re-established train service from rural communities back to major cities as another way to move things from Point A to Point B. I am proposing that the government put as much funding and effort into building rail as it does into building freeways.
There many potiental benefits. Less oil consumption = Less dependence on foreign oil. Less congestion = less smog and healthier air, less cancer, less asthma, and sunsets that aren't brown (Houston, Los Angeles are you listening?). Plus by concentrating the growth, we help to preserve farm land (so we can grow our food and fuel) and also can preserve even more areas as parks and reserves.
Reinvesting in urban centers by concentrating growth would also improve the roads you drive on to get to work, improve and enlarge police forces to improve saftey for not only those who work their but also those who commute their, and improving the school system helps to generate more business, long term, for the company you work for. There is no downside to reinvesting in America's cities.