I am of the idea that we need to focus on building new cities and more efficient roads to connect them. I don’t want to live in the Bay Area particularly, but when I have to go to SF, it sucks that sometimes it can take up to 2 hours to commute 30 miles.
As a software architect, it feels as if the common recipe for solving a scalability problem is decentralization for which you need an awesome messaging system. I do not get why we keep centralizing ourselves around the Bay Area. I am not an expert in the field so perhaps I am coming from a point of ignorance here, but I am genuinely curious as to why.
The USA built the most new cities and roads during the time it prospered, and it seems that we stopped doing that. Not long ago, Elon Musk was highlighting how fast China continues building infrastructures to satisfy the demands of their growing population, and I had noticed that too thanks to friends who have tons of awesome things to say about their visits. Why we don’t go that route? It seems like China is kicking our ass there.
It's not possible. It's a geometry problem. Cars take up too much space.
And if you increase the size of the roads well, you simply induce demand, adding more space inefficient cars to clog up the road. This is why places like LA and Houston have never solved their traffic problems.
There's only really one way to move people faster, and that's to focus on moving the person with more space efficient forms of transportation (ie. trains).
> This is why places like LA and Houston have never solved their traffic problems.
If you put a population cap on LA or wherever, you could solve traffic with construction. Instead, the goal is to increase road capacity inline with the increased trip demand that's largely driven by population growth.
Sure, there are some trips that are taken when there's sufficient capacity, and not when there's not, and you can call discovery of those trips induced demand. But most of the demand increase is from population increase. LA is actually putting in a lot of mass transit, and it gets a surprisingly high (to me anyway) ridership, but it's pretty hard to provide a comprehensive solution to the commute needs of the area when there's no real centralization of workplaces or housing or even retail or amusement. All of those things are more or less distributed throughout the greater LA area, and people live in multi-income households, so relocating to be transit accessible for all earners is difficult. It's really hard to beat point to point time of a flexible, if congested, car vs inflexible transit lines if you have to make more than one transfer.
Fine, let’s evolve our transportation units. We just need to rethink the problem as a whole.
I don’t want to go into conspiracy theory territory, but it does seem as if there are powerful entities that are invested in maintaining the status quo or perhaps it’s just incompetence.
It’s both. There’s a lot of “we’ve always done it this way” and “what would I ever do without taking my car everywhere???” And then there are construction companies, automobile companies, and oil and gas companies that employ a lot of people. Kind of hard to employ those people if we built more sidewalks and bike lanes, and built medium-density mixed use neighborhoods.
Where’s the lobby against the automobile industry and all the deaths that cars cause? Aren’t car wrecks the #1 cause of death of teenagers? “But utility of cars!!” Well that utility only exists because we’ve decided to create it, not that it’s actually necessary.
If in reading this comment you find yourself disagreeing, think about the alleyways and layout of Lago d’Orta for example. Oh but how do they live without 2 cars per household!?
I do not find myself disagreeing or agreeing. I understand I am not knowledgeable in this space and I am just trying to find answers to my questions. I will definitely look into what you mentioned.
>I do not get why we keep centralizing ourselves around the Bay Area. I am not an expert in the field so perhaps I am coming from a point of ignorance here
The background: other cities exist and have existed. Companies can locate anywhere.
Centralization exists in many industries. It's not a phenomenon unique to tech, the Bay Area, or the United States.
Desirable cities also exist in China. The government is constantly dreaming up ways to get people to stop moving to Beijing and Shanghai.
This situation cannot be merely wished away. The tendency for an industry to concentrate in a particular city is historically broad and durable.
> This situation cannot be merely wished away. The tendency for an industry to concentrate in a particular city is historically broad and durable.
We have never seen these population levels in the USA, and a country with a bigger population seems to be tackling the problem with a level of success by building more cities.
Also, perhaps those other cities need to offer incentives for the companies to move. I just don’t think we are tackling the problem the proper way.
If the CCP manages to not internally fall apart (which, IMO, it seems like it's not going to) we (US citz) are very much going to see how hilariously China has kicked our ass in the next few decades.
As a software architect, it feels as if the common recipe for solving a scalability problem is decentralization for which you need an awesome messaging system. I do not get why we keep centralizing ourselves around the Bay Area. I am not an expert in the field so perhaps I am coming from a point of ignorance here, but I am genuinely curious as to why.
The USA built the most new cities and roads during the time it prospered, and it seems that we stopped doing that. Not long ago, Elon Musk was highlighting how fast China continues building infrastructures to satisfy the demands of their growing population, and I had noticed that too thanks to friends who have tons of awesome things to say about their visits. Why we don’t go that route? It seems like China is kicking our ass there.