Laying the Foundations for a Post-Oil Age Economy

For years, Americans allowed themselves to be convinced by mis-truths parroted by politicians and the National Association of Realtors that an economy based on home building and sprawl could thrive permanently. Just like the deluded investors in the Roaring Twenties who convinced themselves that stocks could go up forever, people became convinced that home values could see dramatic appreciations in value for the rest of time, with no negative side effects.

However, the myth of American economic infallibility has been destroyed over the past two years. Now, Americans suddenly find themselves reexamining the situation. In truth, this might only be the beginning of America’s economic decline as this nation is not built to thrive in a resource constrained world.

You may believe I’m another doom and gloom prophet. Maybe I am in one sense as I believe the American economy is poorly equipped to deal with the challenges of the 21^st century.

At the same time, I do believe there are solutions to our economic malaise and the longer we fail to deal with the underlying problems in our economic structure, the more we’ll fall behind the rest of the world. It’s just a matter of convincing people to change the way things work; which if history is any indication, is always difficult, but never impossible.

In 1776, Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, an economic treatise arguing in favor of “free market” principles and in opposition to the mercantilistic views that were dominant at the time.

Smith’s work has been quoted, misquoted, cited, and distorted numerous times in the 233 years since its publication. I have no intention of discussing the nuances of Smith’s views or providing detailed thoughts on his analysis in this piece; rather, I simply point to the one guiding principle behind Smith’s work: increasing economic efficiency.

That should be the ultimate goal, since greater economic efficiencies will result in greater wealth for the most people. While we have numerous economic problems right now, we have almost completely ignored one of the greatest inefficiencies in our society: sprawl.

The Sprawlipolitan Nightmare

If you’ve ever taken a look at maps from some of Europe’s greatest cities in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, you’ll notice the very thorough urban planning almost immediately. The great European cities that were at the center of world power were not haphazardly put together; nor were the early American cities. New York City and Baltimore are two examples of thriving American cities where one can still see a planned out design and structure.

However, the nature of American metropolitan planning changed dramatically after the 1950s. Suburbs began to sprawl dozens of miles outwards from major city cores with little coherence or thought-out design, eventually dramatically reducing American efficiency. The reasoning as to how sprawl creates inefficiencies is quite simple: greater distances between housing centers and work centers results in a greater use of resources. Greater uses of resources create economic inefficiency.

Due to our development patterns, we use more oil to travel to work, the grocery store, friends’ houses, and go out to the movies. We use more energy to power the infrastructure to build and sustain the sprawled out suburbs. In fact, the average American uses nearly twice as much energy as the average European.

However, if you believe it stops there, you’d be dead wrong. Sprawl raises our costs of living in many other ways that we don’t often think about. Sprawl means we have to pay more taxes to construct and maintain the road and highway system needed to service these suburbs. We pay more taxes for emergency services that are spread out over a larger area. We pay higher prices for goods as an indirect result of higher energy costs that drive prices upwards.

We may not notice these things on a day-to-day basis, but it stands to reason that sprawl imposes significant costs on a societal-wide scale that hinders America’s ability to compete with the rest of the world.

If that were not enough, sprawl has helped destroyed one of the things that previously defined America: a sense of community. Sprawled our suburbs isolate us and make it more difficult for us to develop close friendships with many people. It makes it more difficult to sustain major cultural institutions. It leaves us alienated from the world around us. If sprawl imposes very real economic costs on our society, it also creates significant quality-of-life issues and creates considerable constraints on the liveliness of our own culture, which was envied by everyone around us.

America’s Advantages

Fortunately, despite these major issues, America’s advantages have helped us overcome our disadvantages over the past half century. There are very few societies on Earth as free and open as ours and, undoubtedly, that has helped foster a spirit of creativity and ingenuity that has made the American economy the strongest in the world and has lured countless number of dreamers from foreign lands onto our shores.

We originated a system of public financial reporting (via the SEC Acts of 1933 and ’34) that has helped decrease the level of uncertainty for investors and has helped drive costs of capital down. It made America the safest country in the world to invest in and a haven for capital in the latter part of the 21^st century.

The merits of that system should become clear when we see scandals involving highly secretive, private investment firms such as the one run by Bernie Madoff. Madoff was able to perpetrate his Ponzi scheme for decades largely because there was no significant public oversight. In a sense, our public reporting system is like an accounting version of “open source” software, and while there will be bugs in it occasionally, so long as it’s out in the open, people will find it, inform others, and try to correct the situation.

We are also a nation blessed with diverse and plentiful resources and we have a highly educated population. With the exception of China, there are not too many nations that could sustain themselves even in a worst-case scenario where all imports were cut off. We have agriculture, we have minerals, we have manufacturing, and just about anything else we could possibly need in a jam.

Despite these advantages, the rest of the world is catching up to us quickly. As tends to be the case throughout history, when one society has success, others try to mimic it. Inevitably many succeed. It’s no surprise that people in certain parts of the globe, notably Eastern Europe and China have admired America and have sought to learn from us. If we want to maintain our position in the world, it will be necessary to orient our economy towards the future and evidence suggests we are heading towards a resource-constrained world with higher and higher extraction costs. Minimizing energy usage, waste, and maximizing efficiency will be the keys to improving the quality of life.

Minimizing Energy and Resource Usage

If the problem is limited resources and increasingly higher costs of extraction, then the logical solution is to find ways to minimize usage of those resources. America’s great dilemma is that over the past 60 or 70 years, we have built our infrastructure based on the flawed assumption that cheap oil would be plentiful for the foreseeable future. That myth was briefly shattered in the 1970s, before America seemed to have revived the tall tale of eternally cheap oil once again in the ‘90s and ‘00s.

In the late ‘90s, motorists were able to find gasoline as cheap as 80 cents per gallon at one point. Even the greatest demand destruction event in most of our lifetimes was only able to beat the price back down to about $1.50 per gallon at the height of the market collapse in November ’08.

Given this, it’s probably safe to say we won’t be revisiting the heyday of the late ‘90s any time soon. At $50 - $60 per barrel, most of us believe that oil is relatively cheap. When you consider that oil can manage to stay that high despite extremely suppressed demand levels, it becomes clear just how costly our heavy usage of this fossil fuel has become and it’s only going to get worse as emerging economies such as China and India continue to increase their oil consumption.

At this point in time, the American economy might be facing a giant Catch-22. It can only thrive over the long-run with inexpensive oil. Yet, oil is only inexpensive when demand is suppressed in a depressionary or severe recessionary environment. The only real solution is to free ourselves from this paradigm and decrease our energy consumption. The question is, how do we best achieve that?

There are several areas where I believe the nation can begin to promote more efficient energy usage and my goal with this blog will largely be to explore many of these areas. My primary targets are:

1. Expansion of public transportation and high-speed rail systems
2. Transportation policies that reward the most efficient users
3. Economic policies that promote upward, urban development

There are certainly other areas where we can decrease energy consumption and alternative energy technologies can allow us to reduce dependence on foreign oil, but I want to focus on the areas that I believe provide the most significant advantages that are often overlooked. In fact, many of the issues I wish to highlight deal with things that are simply taken for granted.

Disclosures: None

Comments

[MarkitWacha:]

more efficient vehicles are also less safe in an accident. That's why the people bought SUVs, to survive. There's 98% chance that a person will be involved in a severe car accident. What would you want to be in when that happens?

I hope that the vehicles remain the same and that compressed natural gas takes its place. I hope that the engines become more efficient without compromising safety.

Jul 15 11:05 AM

[happycajun:]

Huhhhh? Ever been to London? Yep, well laid out..... What IS the post oil economy? I thought that technology will make energy cheap, clean and abundant - which means attempts to further concentrate populations into potential death traps for natural or manmade plagues won't be driven by energy. And further, if you further concentrate population, who will produce all of the food (and renewable energy) that these slums will need? Waste disposal? Crime? An what about all of the existing "sprawl?" Do you advocate what the dicatator Napoleon did in Paris - bulldoze the whole thing and start from scratch? Sounds like you are a "mass transit" agenda guy, and you don't address what all those sheep in the superherds will be doing for a living. I thought that all this technology was to enable telecommuting and such. Indeed, I work all over the globe frome whereever I am. I thought that one of the environmentally sustainable trends was to consume locally produced "stuff" rather than to ship crap from Hong Kong to NYC for consumption of "fresh" produce. Sounds to me like you need to do a little more work on problem definition before you launch your "foundation" for the Oil Free (ha!) future.

Jul 15 11:06 AM

[jerrydd:]

While fossil energy/fuel prices might be high and going higher, RE is now reasonable and getting cheaper.

What has caused our energy problems are the massive direct and indirect subsidies to oil, coal and nuke. If these were in their price we wouldn't be in this mess as RE would have been here yrs ago stabilizing energy prices. This is happening now and in 10 yrs will stabilize them at about $4/gal/$.20kwhr in todays $.

There is no reason most homes can't make their own power, even enough to charge an EV for transport. It takes no new tech, just putting the real, full cost in oil, coal, nuke instead of hiding it in our income taxes, health costs, etc. Once that is done with a tax everything else will fall into place.

My EV's get 250mpg equivalent for my 100 mile range sportwagon and 600 mpge for my 3wheel MC means I can commute for close to nothing. But I work at home in my workshop building custom EV's, boats so don't need to waste time, money driving, parking, etc.

My choice is have industrial/business areas and high density housing every couple miles instead of concentrating it downtown with eff transport, public and private. And many more home/business combo's. Add to that zero energy homes/buildings and the future will only be bright. And it will happen whether we want it or not. It's just whether we get ahead of the curve or get beaten down by it. I'm way ahead of the curve and making money off it.

Jul 15 11:25 AM

[Alan von Al...:]

@happycajun - always glad to follow your comments, but this Huneycutt kid isn't going to do any critical thinking, doesn't need to. Smirking all the way to the bank. Probably run for Congress.

Jul 15 11:26 AM

[H.J. Huneycutt:]

Tony,

I live in the sprawl too. Most people do. They have no choice. Government policies have distorted the market so thoroughly so that costs have been shifted more heavily to inner-city taxpayers. If I live in DC, I have to pay astronomical taxes. Whereas, if I live in Northern Virginia, I don't.

If I live in DC, I have to pay the astronomical fees to ride a public transit system that is starved to death. If I live in Northern Virginia, I get to use a heavily subsidized road/highway system. If I live in DC, I pay astronomic property taxes since the system is based around property values rather than property usage. Whereas, if I live in Nova, much lower property taxes, which also means lower rents.

Why do you believe the government should subsidize your living patterns at the expense of others? Why do you favor the heavy government distortions in the market that promote sprawl, but deter economic efficiency? That's my question.

I live in NoVa, but I'd live in the city in a heartbeat if I had an option. I don't favor governmental policies that force people to live in inefficient suburbs with no sense of community.

Jul 15 12:14 PM

[H.J. Huneycutt:]

Everyone wants a sprawling mansion with 5 swimming pools, maid service, and a full staff. Doesn't mean it's practical. Americans have been living beyond their means and they've been using the government to subsidize their living patterns.

Suburbia is the greatest example. The gas taxes don't fully pay for the road/highway system any more. Instead, the Federal government and state governments have to shift general income taxes to road building and maintenance. Let's not even mention the fact that governmental services have to increase as we sprawl ever further upwards. More governmental services means more taxes.

The problem is that the government has distorted the market in favor of excessive luxury living in the suburbs. Instead of building, upward, energy efficient cities, we built these Federally and state subsidized sprawled out 'burbs. There are lots of reasons for this and to simply peg it on one thing would be nonsense, but the fact of the matter is that suburban living is less of a choice and more of a necessity due to skewed governmental policies.


On Jul 15 10:24 AM A Barrel Full wrote:

> Economic policies that promote upward, urban development.
>
> Problem is, most of us want a house with its own back yard.
>
> As an observer from afar, I think that the US consumer could us far
> less energy, without too much compromise in living standards, simply
> by moving to more efficient vehicles. The only mechanism that would
> make this happen however is gasoline taxes, something that no politician
> will countenance.

Jul 15 12:20 PM

[H.J. Huneycutt:]

The comments in this thread tend to reinforce a distorted view --- that we can continue living beyond our means and that government will save us. We can not keep exporting all of our national wealth outwards to the oil-producing nations.

You want to talk about slums --- that's what suburbia is going to look like in many places in 30 years. Who wants to live in the suburbs when gasoline hits $5/gallon? Who wants to live in the suburbs when the Federal subsidies for the highway system prove to no longer be sustainable without massive taxes? Why should inner city taxpayers pay the burdens of suburbia? Wouldn't it be more economically efficient to simply reward those who don't use as much governmental services and punish those who use the most?

Jul 15 12:25 PM

[Neil459:]

What a hoax. No one lives beyond their means. If no one individual lives beyond their means, then society is not living beyond their means. This is just more propaganda to get American's to go back to living in huts with no running water and lots of blankets. I guess that would be the ultimate energy saving solution.

On Jul 15 12:25 PM H.J. Huneycutt wrote:
> The comments in this thread tend to reinforce a distorted view ---
> that we can continue living beyond our means and that government
> will save us.

Jul 15 01:03 PM

[Socialism c...:]

"In truth, this might only be the beginning of America’s economic decline as this nation is not built to thrive in a resource constrained world."

1) Ability to sustain homebuilding is not an illusion. The reason we had so much trouble is Big Government. Look to behemoth socialist entitlements and you'll see the cause for severely out-of-whack government budgets. Likewise, government interference in housing and mortgages is directly responsible for the housing bubble & collapse -- ala Fannie, Freddie, FHA, HUD, and the Commie Reinvestment Act. Obama himself sued Citigroup under the CRA to force more subprime lending! We had gotten to the point where underwriting was a farce as a result, and banks said hey, we have to, so we will...and we can take some profit and then sell it to Fannie, which basically dictates our rates and terms anyway. And so it was. Housing would have been fine without F/F & the CRA.

2) Resource constrained world? Drill, drill, drill!! Solar, solar, solar!! There are more than enough resources. The green-worshippers have simply successfully foisted this issue upon the rest of the formerly rational citizens, and here comes Cap & Tax as a result. Please give us detailed points, not baseless assertions.

Jul 15 01:09 PM

[H.J. Huneycutt:]

Socialism cannot compete,

You are correct to an extent. Government distortions helped fuel the housing bubble, just as they have created massive suburban building and urban ghettos. If you look at the rest of the world, you won't see quite as ridiculously sprawled out 'burbs, because the governments there have not (a) subsidized the road/highway system over all other transportation options, (b) have not set property taxes at ridiculously high levels in the cities, while setting them at very low levels in the suburbs, and (c) have adequately funded public transit.

So why continue supporting government interference in the marketplace, as you seem to suggest you do?

I did give you "detailed points". You chose not to read them. They are available on the blog. They will be expanded more over time.


On Jul 15 01:09 PM Socialism cannot compete! wrote:

> "In truth, this might only be the beginning of America’s economic
> decline as this nation is not built to thrive in a resource constrained
> world."
>
> 1) Ability to sustain homebuilding is not an illusion. The reason
> we had so much trouble is Big Government. Look to behemoth socialist
> entitlements and you'll see the cause for severely out-of-whack government
> budgets. Likewise, government interference in housing and mortgages
> is directly responsible for the housing bubble & collapse --
> ala Fannie, Freddie, FHA, HUD, and the Commie Reinvestment Act.
> Obama himself sued Citigroup under the CRA to force more subprime
> lending! We had gotten to the point where underwriting was a farce
> as a result, and banks said hey, we have to, so we will...and we
> can take some profit and then sell it to Fannie, which basically
> dictates our rates and terms anyway. And so it was. Housing would
> have been fine without F/F & the CRA.
>
> 2) Resource constrained world? Drill, drill, drill!! Solar, solar,
> solar!! There are more than enough resources. The green-worshippers
> have simply successfully foisted this issue upon the rest of the
> formerly rational citizens, and here comes Cap & Tax as a result.
> Please give us detailed points, not baseless assertions.

Jul 15 01:54 PM

[H.J. Huneycutt:]

For some reason, SA deleted the link to the blog so here it is:

theupwardsociety.wordp...

Jul 15 01:55 PM

[H.J. Huneycutt:]

Try it again:

theupwardsociety.wordp...

Jul 15 01:56 PM

[User 357705:]

I won't even attempt to persuade you. Ideologues are a huge part of the problem. Exceptionalism. Raw. Naked. Irreconcilable.


On Jul 15 10:52 AM Tony Petroski wrote:

> This article is a mess.
>
> The author: "Americans allowed themselves to be convinced by mis-truths
> parroted by politicians and the National Association of Realtors
> that an economy based on home building and sprawl could thrive permanently."
> "...people became convinced that home values could see dramatic appreciations
> in value for the rest of time, with no negative side effects."<br/>
>
> I live on the middle of this "sprawl" and I love it.
>
> How are your "sustainable urban developments" faring? Your premise
> is that "politicians and the National Association of Realtors" backed
> "sprawl" at the expense of "sustainable urban developments (hereinafter
> shortened to SUSTURB). Fact is they backed the development and sale
> of every type of real estate including the basement in the SUSTURB
> you live in, and all the ships are falling with the ebb tide, not
> just "sprawl."
>
> The author: "If you’ve ever taken a look at maps from some of Europe’s
> greatest cities in the 18th and 19th centuries, you’ll notice the
> very thorough urban planning almost immediately."
>
> Those cities were planned so well that vast masses of Europeans decided
> to expend much energy and sail to America in steamships. They settled
> in similarly-planned SUSTURBs and then branched out to live in Sprawlitonia,
> not liking either the European or the American SUSTURBs.
>
> The author: "...the average American uses nearly twice as much energy
> as the average European."
>
> This, truly, is a disgrace. When I was younger, the average American
> used nearly 4 times the energy as the average European not to mention
> 8 times the energy as the average Citizen of the World. Those were
> the days when we were a great country dedicated to producing and
> getting ahead, not curled up in the fetal position awaiting the end
> of "peak oil." Incidentally, while those embarking at Ellis Island,
> having expended at least 10 times as much energy as the average European,
> were busy creating new lives for themselves, they were being lectured
> by elites about "Peak Whale Oil" and why all the homes would go dark
> once the whales were all dead.
>
> America thrived not because we followed 5-year-plans or had Industrial
> Policy Boards but precisely because it was a place where free men
> could do what they wanted. Some wished to live in dense cities and
> they built great places like New York. Others chose to branch out
> and lived on the periphery among people they chose to associate with.
> I know of no "sprawlers" who want to shut down the dense cities.
> However it does seem a characteristic of the proponents of SUSTURBS
> that they want to wipe the map of the "sprawlers."
>
> On 9/11/01 we saw the weakness of the SUSTURB as a great city was
> paralized by 20 men. Meantime, us sprawlers went about life pretty
> much as normal, albeit we couldn't fly on a plane for a week. In
> our extended fight against radical Islam, are SUSTURBs really so
> valuable or sustainable?
>
>
>
>
>
>

Jul 15 04:32 PM

[User 357705:]

98%? Empirical data to support that contention?


On Jul 15 11:05 AM MarkitWacha wrote:

> more efficient vehicles are also less safe in an accident. That's
> why the people bought SUVs, to survive. There's 98% chance that
> a person will be involved in a severe car accident. What would you
> want to be in when that happens?
>
> I hope that the vehicles remain the same and that compressed natural
> gas takes its place. I hope that the engines become more efficient
> without compromising safety.

Jul 15 04:33 PM

[User 357705:]

Why do you chortle about your seemingly good subsidized roads yet disparage those apparently bad subsidized public transport systems?

I swear, do people hear themselves? Duhmerican'ts have been so brain fucked.


On Jul 15 12:14 PM H.J. Huneycutt wrote:

> Tony,
>
> I live in the sprawl too. Most people do. They have no choice.
> Government policies have distorted the market so thoroughly so that
> costs have been shifted more heavily to inner-city taxpayers. If
> I live in DC, I have to pay astronomical taxes. Whereas, if I live
> in Northern Virginia, I don't.
>
> If I live in DC, I have to pay the astronomical fees to ride a public
> transit system that is starved to death. If I live in Northern Virginia,
> I get to use a heavily subsidized road/highway system. If I live
> in DC, I pay astronomic property taxes since the system is based
> around property values rather than property usage. Whereas, if I
> live in Nova, much lower property taxes, which also means lower rents.
>
>
> Why do you believe the government should subsidize your living patterns
> at the expense of others? Why do you favor the heavy government
> distortions in the market that promote sprawl, but deter economic
> efficiency? That's my question.
>
> I live in NoVa, but I'd live in the city in a heartbeat if I had
> an option. I don't favor governmental policies that force people
> to live in inefficient suburbs with no sense of community.

Jul 15 04:40 PM

[jerrydd:]

I see at least 4 socialist here who thumbed down my post. The only reason I can see is you don't want to pay the real cost of oil, coal and instead foist it on those like me who use little of it.

You are already paying these subsidies to big oil, coal, oil wars, Iran Russia, oil dictators and terrorists in your income taxes, health care costs, etc. Isn't supporting our enemies treason?

I should have mentioned the income from the fossil fuel tax would go to income tax cuts and help switching to more eff vehicles, homes, etc though tax rebates which is Obama's real plan, not the one in congress.

So are you socialist, subsidizers of our enemies or free marketers where those who use pay the full cost? Vote down for socialists/ traitors and up for free markets.

Jul 15 05:09 PM

[User 357705:]

I won't even attempt to persuade you. Ideologues are a huge part of the problem. Exceptionalism. Raw. Naked. Irreconcilable.

Oh, BTW - thumbs up or down are as meaningless as arguing about the relative merits of Pepsi or Coke.


On Jul 15 05:09 PM jerrydd wrote:

>
> I see at least 4 socialist here who thumbed down my post. The only
> reason I can see is you don't want to pay the real cost of oil, coal
> and instead foist it on those like me who use little of it.
>
> You are already paying these subsidies to big oil, coal, oil wars,
> Iran Russia, oil dictators and terrorists in your income taxes, health
> care costs, etc. Isn't supporting our enemies treason?
>
> I should have mentioned the income from the fossil fuel tax would
> go to income tax cuts and help switching to more eff vehicles, homes,
> etc though tax rebates which is Obama's real plan, not the one in
> congress.
>
> So are you socialist, subsidizers of our enemies or free marketers
> where those who use pay the full cost? Vote down for socialists/
> traitors and up for free markets.

Jul 15 05:16 PM

[derryl:]

jerrydd advocates more mixed land uses and I agree. Most people's only property is their house, and/or place of business, and people should be able to use their property in whatever way works for them personally. But restrictive zoning bylaws force development of huge residential neighborhoods separated by miles from any possible place of work.

Restrictive zoning is supported by NIMBYism. But newsflash: it's MY backyard buddy, not yours, and unless I'm doing something toxic or hazardous then the public has no business telling me how I can or can't use my own property.

Marx advocated abolition of all private property. Zoning restrictions accomplish Marx's goal of centralized control of property, without the messy proletarian revolution part. And just like in the Soviet Union, the bureaucratic apparatchiks who do the controlling are given salaries, health plans and pensions paid for by the property owners that they oppress.

Jul 16 01:19 AM

[ChrisJCook:]

derryl

In fact Marx saw the Abolition of Property and the Abolition of the State as being consequences of what he called the Abolition of Labour (so that people no longer work FOR capital rather than with it).

It was Stalin came up with centralisation and the State, not Marx.

I think it was the US political economist Henry George who had the right idea about land IMHO - he believed that those who have exclusive rights of use of land (how can anyone "own" land /location?) should compensate those they exclude.

So if you improve land over which you have exclusive rights you should keep all the improvement value. But if improvements by society increase the value of your location you should pay something in respect of that change in value.

IMHO most of the cost of public transport can and should flow from the capture of a small part of the increased land rental value in the area served. Both Hong Kong and Denmark get this right, and a few US areas have also in the past until landlord interests got their way and moved taxes to income and expenditure.

Jul 16 08:59 AM

[Ibrahim Koshy:]

With the current situation unfolding as fast as it is, maintaining the current standard of living will not be an option unless radical change takes place fast.

Government funding for better transportation networks, government standards for more fuel efficient transportation, more funding for alternative energy, enforcing higher insulation standards on homes, reforming taxation laws to encourage entrepreneurial business activity and to bring manufacturing back to North America, educational reforms so that graduates can face the job challenges in our fast changing world are just some of the changes needed to prevent an economic collapse within a couple of decades. On the priority list regaining the worlds trust in the dollar and US financial stability is imperative otherwise the economic decline will be in a matter of a little over a decade.

Government appetite for funds through taxation needs to be looked at in the area of property taxes. Many of the essential services provided through taxes should be revisited and allocated to other sources. Eliminating property taxes (I know many don't think this logical) would serve the public in many ways. Foremost among the benefits would be less government influence on real estate prices letting free market principles have more weight in the actual value of a property.

As for becoming more competitive & efficient I am all for public transportation and building upward.
On a trip in which I spent 45+ days in Zurich, Switzerland I was exposed to the worlds' best public transportation system. I was so impressed I did a little research and found that Zurich actually had the densest and most comprehensive public transportation network. Comprised of Trains, electric buses, underground metro, boats, & ferries you were never more than 5 minutes walking distance to the network and could go to any point in the city.

Major cities In Europe have well established public transportation systems but nowhere near the comprehensive network I have seen in Zurich. Cities on the east coast of the USA have notable public transportation networks but again these are lacking to say the least.

Jul 16 11:38 AM