Reply #3: Cars are, unfortunately, inherent to the current American Way of Life (TM) [View All]

[dcfirefighter]

American 'mass transit' cannot compete with the convenience, speed, comfort or destinations offered by an automobile.

NIMBYism, xenophobia, Zoning Laws, fear of density, and allodial property rights resist the kind of dense, multiple use communities that would make a car trip a once-a-week affair rather than a several-times-a-day affair.

Not many communities can offer:
sufficiently varied housing
sufficiently varied employment
sufficiently varied shopping
sufficiently varied entertainment
and sufficiently varied recreation
within walking distance. Inevitably, in locations that approach this level of convenience, the housing is expensive, the employment fleeting, the shopping upscale, etc.

Even if the automobiles ran on mechanical flywheels charged from fusion reactors, the network of roads and parking would be an energy (carbon?) intense operation.

Give me small-lot detatched homes, duplexes, rowhomes, flats, stores, offices, light industrial, urban parks, etc. all within a 6 minute walk from a transit station connecting to other similar developments. Surround them by playing fields and a greenbelt of forested parks. Surround those by smallhold organic farms. Surround those by managed forests, natural preserves, and wilderness areas.

NNadir: how far from a town must you locate a Gen IV reactor? I want waste heat to heat my town in the winter. (and cool it in the summer).