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Old Posted Apr 11, 2012, 7:17 PM
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wburg wburg is offline
Hindrance to Development
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,402
This reminds me of gun-control debates where any firearm below a certain size is a "concealable pocket rocket" and any firearm above that size is a "deadly assault weapon." Basically, when the HSR plan is big and comprehensive, the critics say it's too big and expensive. When it is scaled back in response to criticism, the critics say it's too small and doesn't fit the specifications of the bill. There is no happy medium for the anti-train folks.

Infrastructure investment does produce returns--but the types of places created by those investments vary. Rail-based infrastructure tends to promote more vertical, compact development--when the United States had the best railroad system in the world, we built compact cities and invented the skyscraper to address the need for better use of space. Road/highway based infrastructure tends to promote more horizontal, broad development over wider areas due to the space requirements of the car. When we built the best highway system in the world, cities sprawled horizontally and we invented the shopping mall and the big-box store, surrounded by huge parking lots, to address the need for automobiles to park everywhere. So we traded skyscrapers for "landscrapers"--and HSR represents the transportation infrastructure we will need to trade back!
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