Apparently urbanization and Marxism have a strong tie… maybe because the metropolis is the centre of power? I dunno.
A lot of talk about urban sprawl too.
How would our landscape, cities and rural areas look like if government never funded roads and mass transit? Would everything be closer together, less sprawled? Or the opposite?
Can anyone shed some light on this topic?
You refer to the fact that population density correlates with statism?
It does? Please elaborate.
Actually Marxist revolutions had the most success in agrarian societies, not urban societies.
In theory however, it was the urban proletariat that was to lead the revolution. Boy, was that wrong.
Well if roads, highways, railways, etc. weren’t subsidized to the extent that they are, I would guess that populations would have to live closer together than they do now.
I used to think so too, but it doesn’t necessarily follow. Isn’t it true that if the government is not involved then something is usually cheaper and gets even cheaper over time? So why would transportation be any different? The means people would choose, their solutions and the solutions businesses would find for getting from A to B, and the way prices allocated the resources in question, are technically impossible to know. It might pay to live closer together but be ridiculously cheap to shit goods. But I think this is one area people, even economists who know better, assume they know what the alternative would be like absent subsidization, when in reality no one does. Immediate effects on our current situation if subsidies were removed are likely easy to predict, but what would happen one, five, ten years out or more, no way. And what might have happened had the government not gotten involved? Never know. Shame too. We’d probably have Star Trek transporters by now.
On the other hand not having to worry about a building permission you could build a house anywhere you pleased whereas now some zones are off limits being designated wild land or farmland or simply because the municipality can not be bothered to extend the utilities that far.
If anything, removing zoning and building codes would promote development within already-existing city areas. Cities (think: Detroit, Cleveland) tend to be regulated to death, which is why there is such a “white flight” problem. So if we removed those regulations, less people would probably leave the city whereas more would come in to live close to their place of work.
Well, absent tax-funded roads (and other modes of transportation), someone living in the suburbs would have to pay a toll in order to use a road. These tolls would encourage people to live within city limits.
Well it depends on the scenario. Where I live no state and therefore no public snowplowing service would probably mean that all the folks living up in the hills would have a strong incentive to climb down to civilisation. But it would also mean our town down in the valley could expand into width much faster and we wouldn’t be needlessly packed as sardines by urban planners despite there being loads of (not very productive) farmland around us.
i have looked at old citeies and towns in europe. i guess many were fuedal-owned and granted township from a king or duke or equivalent.
cities in america arent as old (though some began as grants froma king or earl) . most old europe cites seem to be very close together and dense. due to security reasons??? or a way for the duke to get taxes easy???
i believe some older sections of colonial towns in the us are rather densley packed as well.
i have read the well over half the populatin of netherlands lives in apartmetns.