

Clash of Subways and Car Culture in China: Are a hundred Los Angeleses destined to bloom? - fleaflicker
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/business/worldbusiness/27transit.html

======
randomwalker
I never thought to question LA's image as a byword for sprawl until I saw this
series on the Freakonomics blog.

"According to the Federal Highway Administration, of the 36 largest metro
areas, Los Angeles ranks dead last in terms of freeway lane miles per
resident." [http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/los-
angeles...](http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/los-angeles-
transportation-facts-and-fiction-freeways/)

"But while the situation is far from ideal, the numbers from the California
Air Resources Board make it clear that Los Angeles has come a remarkably long
way toward cleaning up the air."
[http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/los-
angeles...](http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/los-angeles-
transportation-facts-and-fiction-smog/)

"As of the 2000 census, the Los Angeles region’s urbanized area had the
highest population density in the nation. Yes, that was the word “highest,”
not a smudge on your monitor."
[http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/los-
angeles...](http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/los-angeles-
transportation-facts-and-fiction-sprawl/)

"But compared with the majority of U.S. cities, Los Angeles is not a transit
wasteland. The region is second in the nation in transit patronage, behind
only New York. Even on a market share basis (passenger transit miles traveled
as a share of all miles traveled), Los Angeles’s ridership rate is relatively
high: 11th among the 50 largest urban areas."
[http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/los-
angeles...](http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/los-angeles-
transportation-facts-and-fiction-transit/)

The myths appear to arise from a multitude of factors, such as confusing
downtown density with overall density, and viewing the city through the eyes
of Hollywood. Also, once a city acquires a reputation (such as NYC and crime),
it takes forever to lose it.

~~~
nostrademons
It seems like there's a lot of room for fudge factors in the numbers though.
How are they defining metro areas? By many definitions, the NYC metro area
extends out to the tip of Long Island, which is nearly all farmland, forest,
and beach. The forks of Long Island have a combined population of 125,000
(1/10th of Manhattan) on land area of 564 sq mi (almost 20 times bigger than
Manhattan).

Similarly, the Boston metro area is often considered to extend out to
Worcester and southern New Hampshire, which includes towns like Dunstable
(3000 people on land area that's about the size of downtown Boston). But
there's a very big difference between a metro area like Boston where most of
the people live within a dense urban core and then it drops off to farmland
and open space quickly, vs. one like LA where it's medium-density suburbs all
the way through.

~~~
baguasquirrel
Agreed. If we were to look at the cities' population density the figures are
stark.

Los Angeles pop: 3,849,378 dens: 8,205

New York pop: 8,274,527 dens: 27,147

Vancouver pop: 578,041 dens: 13,817.6

London pop: 7,556,900 dens: 12,331

The kicker is that these figures obscure the fact that the _core_ of LA just 3
million. In other words, only 1/4 of the people live in the core, and the core
is _still_ more spread out than these other cities.

By contrast, half of the people in the NY Metro live in NYC proper. In London,
greater than half of the people live in it London proper.

LA's profile is most similar to Vancouver's, which is a city with fewer people
in its greater metro area than LA has in its core.

------
biohacker42
100 L.A.s didn't bloom in Europe. The car is similar to other fads, it's
exciting and everyone wants one first, but later people start to get tired of
it.

What's unique about the US west coast is that the cities there were not much
older then the automobile, that's why the are so much more car oriented.

~~~
chiffonade
> but later people start to get tired of it.

I assure you this is not the case in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Berlin, anywhere that
car culture _is_ the culture.

Once a place grows up with car culture, it very rarely loses it. That's the
point of the article.

~~~
biohacker42
Both Tokyo and Berlin suffered major destruction and were rebuilt after the
invention of the car.

I was thinking more along the lines of European towns like Zurich.

~~~
chiffonade
> suffered major destruction and were rebuilt after the invention of the car.

Really? Pretty much every single major city with 10M or more inhabitants in
China (of which there are dozens, if not hundreds) was destroyed in WW2 and
rebuilt after. There was no Marshall plan for this, which is why you probably
had no idea. The US was not interested in helping communists in China or the
USSR rebuild after WW2.

And even if a city wasn't destroyed, it was rebuilt just for the sheer hell of
it 2 or 3 times in a row during the post-war period. Chinese cities have
pretty much been being rebuilt continuously since 1950. Anyone who's ever gone
would know this, which you obviously haven't.

So what exactly is your point, other than you didn't learn anything about
China during your US or European history classes in high school?

~~~
biohacker42
Mmmm.. 'k.

Having been born behind the iron curtain I do know there was no Marshall plan
outside of Western Europe. But I did not know that cities in China were
rebuilt 2 or 3 times for the sheer hell of it during the post-war period.

My point is that I agree with you, L.A. (like most American cities) is a city
build around cars. I'm no sure about Berlin and Tokyo, but I am quite sure
about the plethora of other west and east European cities I've enjoyed living
in. Those cities, much like NY, are great to live in even if you don't own a
car.

------
mkelly
The way I see it, if the cities are sprawling (like LA), then cars will rule.
If they are compact (like NY), then public transit will at least have a
chance.

It's not a matter of if they can build the metro fast enough. If you have a
sprawling suburbia, you can't effectively cover enough area to make public
transit competitive. (I think this applies to all public transit, not just
subways.)

~~~
Retric
IMO, the secret to effective public transport is having an independent system
so you can avoid traffic jams. The reason Bus systems fail is they don't save
people time. However, taking the subway tends to be faster than driving when
you include parking time etc.

~~~
stcredzero
In Minneapolis, light rail to the airport works for this reason, even though
it is subject to stopping for traffic downtown. Once past downtown, the train
takes precedence, so it really does save time. (Since I have no car in
Minneapolis, the light rail makes everything feel like an extension of the
Airport/Mall of America.)

