The Structure Of Transportation Revolutions

The first transportation revolution "from pedestrian to equestrian proved as momentous as any that followed, perhaps more momentous. The equestrian acquired new means of making a livelihood, a new access to resources natural and manmade, and, equally important, a new outlook.

...Given the challenges faced by the automobile it is little wonder that it was a long time in establishing itself. Once certain preconditions were in place, however, an explosion in production was virtually assured.

...In time the automobile spawned motels, supermarkets, fast food franchises, and the whole vast edifice of drive-in culture, and all of these various manifestations became new feedback loops promoting the sale of more and more cars. Today the process still continues and has spread to Europe and is threatening to engulf the new industrial nations of Asia as well.

...Over the last twenty years or so a new element has been added to urban sprawl that is sometimes termed exurbia for want of a better word. Here the housing tracts are located at great distances from the urban core to which they are tenuously connected--sometimes over fifty miles away—and the tracts themselves stand in isolation with no proximity to schools, churches, shopping centers, or major employers.

...Unless cities change radically the majority of Americans will still not want to live in them and will seek whatever means present themselves for returning to the suburbs.

...The market for two wheeled personal transport will undoubtedly continue to expand, and this could well drive housing patterns in the developing world in the same way as automobiles have in America. Because of the dangerous elevated emission levels emitted by the current two cycle art, we would expect some kinds of new technology, probably involving the internal combustion engine to find its way into this market. Beyond, this the future of transportation appears murky. We see no new systems on the horizon as revolutionary as the trolley, the automobile, or the commercial airline, and instead we see constraints as to fuel availability that did not exist in the past."

Thanks to Chris Steins