Comments on: Moving down-scale http://www.jarche.com/2009/02/moving-down-scale/ Life in Perpetual Beta Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:59:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Harold Jarche » Natural entrepreneurship http://www.jarche.com/2009/02/moving-down-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-186727 Harold Jarche » Natural entrepreneurship Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:31:05 +0000 http://www.jarche.com/?p=2172#comment-186727 [...] Dave Ferguson on Moving down-scaleGeorgiy Ratomskiy on Networksgraham watt on O CanadaHarold Jarche on O CanadaBrian Ward on O [...] [...] Dave Ferguson on Moving down-scaleGeorgiy Ratomskiy on Networksgraham watt on O CanadaHarold Jarche on O CanadaBrian Ward on O [...]

]]> By: Dave Ferguson http://www.jarche.com/2009/02/moving-down-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-186718 Dave Ferguson Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:44:11 +0000 http://www.jarche.com/?p=2172#comment-186718 Long-haul passenger rail has a role (I was with Amtrak for 11 years), but it's not a starring one. Trains carried 95% of US intercity traffic in 1910, but that's like saying the Apple II handled 70% of all spreadsheet transactions--there wasn't that much intercity traffic in a mainly rural country, and there was virtually no alternative for trips over 400 miles. Suburban sprawl will have to end. Regional (<500 miles) and commuter rail may increase, though the denser the area, the more bitter right-of-way and infrastructure fights will be. (I wonder if in the meantime airlines will experiment with "quiet flights," the way Amtrak has no-cell-phone quiet cars in the Northeast Corridor?) I revisited the TED talk, then saw <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/stewart_brand_on_squatter_cities.html" rel="nofollow">this one</a> by Stewart Brand--not a refutation of Kunstler's indignation, but a different angle. I hadn't thought of squatter cities as sources of productivity. Long-haul passenger rail has a role (I was with Amtrak for 11 years), but it’s not a starring one. Trains carried 95% of US intercity traffic in 1910, but that’s like saying the Apple II handled 70% of all spreadsheet transactions–there wasn’t that much intercity traffic in a mainly rural country, and there was virtually no alternative for trips over 400 miles.

Suburban sprawl will have to end. Regional (<500 miles) and commuter rail may increase, though the denser the area, the more bitter right-of-way and infrastructure fights will be. (I wonder if in the meantime airlines will experiment with “quiet flights,” the way Amtrak has no-cell-phone quiet cars in the Northeast Corridor?)

I revisited the TED talk, then saw this one by Stewart Brand–not a refutation of Kunstler’s indignation, but a different angle. I hadn’t thought of squatter cities as sources of productivity.

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