By CHARLES MAROHN, Strong towns
After sixty years of the Suburban Experiment, we have a conditioned response to congestion on our streets: we add automobile capacity. We widen streets, add turning areas, remove parking and add additional lanes. Economists tell us that congestion costs us billions of dollars a year. What if that was backwards? What if congestion was the essential ingredient our cities needed to prosper?
…
We also intuitively understand the economic impact of fighting congestion. With each increase of automobile mobility, we see new investments occurring. Strips malls, big box stores and new housing subdivisions, all signs of progress made possible by increasing automobile mobility. Investment responds to the increase in mobility and coalesces where it can be put to most efficient use. This means the big box retailer is able to compete at a lower price than the corner hardware store. The chain grocer is able to offer a wider selection than the corner grocer. The national coffee shop is able to offer the brand recognition not available to ma and pa.
…
Need a gallon of milk? In an America of Strong Towns, you can get in your car and drive or — if the cost in terms of your time or quality of experience is worth more to you than you would choose to give up in dollar wealth — you can walk down the street to the corner grocer. Today that is considered quaint, but stop wasting enormous sums of money fighting congestion and now that becomes a real choice. Am I going to sit in my car for half an hour on clogged streets to save two dimes on milk or will I just walk up the block?
…
And please understand what I’m saying: We can actually spend lots less, have a government that is smaller and more effective and see a ton of local investment — stuff that will make a city wealthier and more prosperous over the long run — while providing small business opportunities and a growing, stable and diverse workforce. This is a vision for a New America, one much more closely tied to the best of our heritage than the current consumption-centric, faux incarnation of the American Dream.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2012/10/23/embracing-congestion.html
Biking in Baltimore