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Old 08-26-2009, 07:08 AM   #17 (permalink)
roflwaffle
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee View Post
What- do you think if that scenario came to pass that the city would just sit there with it's newfound "open space"?

Prolly some percentage of the pop was already there and didn't have cars due to the inconveniece. They saw the opp to become upwardly mobile and took it.
Generally speaking, shorter cars won't change traffic jams much. It's mostly about traffic density, and that's mostly a function of people's behavior everywhere. They just tend to clump up. I suppose there could be more parking spots, but more parking alone isn't enough to triple the vehicle fleet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee View Post
Well no city has ever had their vehicles downsized by 2/3.

But no major city has ever really gotten SMALLER either, right?
Well, except for the two largest cities in the most populated country on Earth?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee View Post
Seems like every effort that gets made to economize on something, no matter what it may be, becomes an excuse for breeders to step in and make the situation as bad or worse than it was before then. Or for consumers to up their consumption until they've matched or surpassed their "old" level.

Got a more efficient car? Drive it all over hell, all the time!

More efficient appliance? Get a dozen more toys and plug 'em in!

High efficiency furnace? Crank it up another 10 degrees!

and so on.
As bad or worse than it was before? That hasn't been seen in decades. Most efficiency improvements in the past century haven't been optimal, meaning that in most cases consumers did increase driving, or heating, or whatever after the improvement, but at no time have they increased whatever they're doing to the point where it overwhelmed the efficiency improvement and made consumption bad or worse. Efficiency improvements tend to not be optimal, but they still tend to be effective.
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