American history is more about fast and cheap transportation than extremes of overcrowding. Even New York, our most crowded city by far, became crowded very late in American history. To this day, the United States is not extremely dense, not by European or East Asian standards.
But in American history, the inventions of horses, faster ships, safer ships, turnpikes, canals, our amazing river network, railroads, automobiles, and airplanes have been essential to our development. America put in a strong performance in all those areas. When it comes to density, we have a small number of victories.
Many of our Founding Fathers were actually suspicious of crowding. So why not play to your culural strengths and locations? After all, the United States is arguably the most successful country.
American SMSAs tend to impress more than American cities per second.
These days I see an urban movement that focuses more on congestion than mobility. I am in favor of relaxing or removing many restrictions on urban density, and America’s cities would be better for it. Economic growth will increase, and Oakland will flourish. But still I am very interested in walking, which I see as a great climb.
Another problem is that urban density appears to lower fertility. It is not clear that the same can be said for travel.
And do you really want to propagate and replicate the politics of our most densely populated areas?
Isn’t traveling better than crowding to raise a class of young men who will fight to defend their country?
Don’t mobile and scattered immigrants eat better than dense ones?
A lot of people like high-speed rail, I like (strongly) the Northeast Corridor, but other than that I’m not happy about it, at least not in America. Otherwise, the crowd works to raise the status of many low-speed means of transport, for example bicycles. Bicycles are also dangerous, and their riders break traffic laws at very high speeds. I don’t wish to ban bicycles, but I wish we could organize them not to run red lights. (I wonder how much their demand will decrease.)
I prefer to look to a better future where high speed transportation is affordable and green. Ultimately, low-speed transportation is a poor country’s thing. It is also a poor country’s thing to have many different speeds on your roads at once (I will never forget my first visit to India in 2004). High speed differences can also be dangerous, as evidenced by Charles Lave’s research.
I don’t want to see the United States go the way of a poor country.
If you are passionate about travel, you will attach great importance to Uber, Waymo, self-driving cars in general, and better flying. For me this is a big improvement, and all can get much, much better for now.
I don’t know if the current plans for Neom, in Saudi Arabia, would be viable or affordable. Still, the idea of going fast on “The Line” at least represents an attractive way of thinking. What better guide for future exploration than bikes.
These points were obvious to many people in the 1960s. The Jetsons had their own (safe) flying cars. The top innovation in Star Trek was the transporter.
Jane Jacobs was very concerned about the West Village, a wonderful part of America. However, as far as I know (I haven’t read everything his work), he didn’t write much about how to get more people to visit, and learn about the West Village. His was the view of an insider who now lives there. That is one valid opinion, but not the only one.
Robert Moses was passionate about building the Cross-Bronx Expressway. That was a mixed blessing (see Robert Caro), but it showed his interest in moving instead of cramming each session.
Today the world is full of anti-tourist movements, which oppose at least some forms of travel. I prefer to go back to most of that, using Pigouvian funds to protect Venice and other places when needed.
Ireland strikes me as one country today that should be more concerned about congestion, not mobility. Before 1840, the country had more people than today. And it could, easily. Currently, there are very few buildings and the cost of living is very high. Dublin and Belfast also need more cultural infrastructure (which requires a higher population) to be a bigger draw for skilled foreign workers.
The correct answers here will depend on the countries and regions under consideration.
Switzerland, a very successful country, also pays a lot of attention to travel. Switzerland’s tunnels through the Alps are one of Europe’s greatest achievements, although today we take them for granted. And the Swiss are trying to improve roads without reducing traffic. You don’t need to put a lot of people in Bern if it’s easy to get to Bern, and far from Bern.
Mobility tends to give you more algorithmic freedom than congestion.
So, at least among urbanites, maybe the congestion these days is too much? After all, the total flow of American citizens is coming to the suburbs.
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