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CC- this is an intresting question and following disscussion.
I had never thought about transporation and Society being linked together. I will have to check out some of the books mentioned here. I guess I better get reading!
Keep asking us anything intresting that you come across CC. You have my intrest in this whole subject matter.
Red Rock
Just read this and thought of this thread...
When I worked out in the suburbs in last job over 40 kms. away from home in the downtown core, some employees asked me if I was going to relocate closer to work. :eek:
They knew of my long, daily non-car commute (blend of bike, light rapid train, bus, then walk). But for me, it was a temporary situation because job was contract. We currently live close within a 15-20 min. walk to many stores, services, restaurants, community centre, transportation choices. They didn't understand how I could live downtown. But then they haven't walked around in our area to appreciate how convenient things were.
The suburb is quite sprawly in a way that was mind-numbing every time we piled into someone's car occasionally and had to spend half an hr. to find a restaurant to eat, other than McDonald's. It really felt like the title of one of the referenced books, "Geography to Nowhere" except the mountains nearby and small historic area (Hudson's Bay fur trading station).
A few employees who were long-time residents now complain the quaint rural pace is being stripped out by the faster, denser car traffic ...and convoys of large transport trucks due to light industry on its edges and being close to the U.S.-Canada border. I had mixed feelings being part of a engineering company that building more highways/major roads to add to further urbanization. The agricultural land in my opinion, huge chunks will disappear over next few decades once new roads are "fixed"/situated permanently on land.
Methinks people get freaked out by photo of this aerial view with highrises, etc., not knowing how community services and other amenities are organized in various neighbourhoods.
Then when you get closer, in photo2. The green rail areas are bike lanes on various road bridges downtown. It is normally used alot by cyclists. Summer weekends tend to be abit quieter especially statutory holidays. Photos are part of downtown Vancouver. So bike, car, walking, water transportation and in distance near the geodesic round structure is aboveground light train system. Ringed all around the water body is a 25+ km. bike-pedestrian route that's well-known and well-used. (And probably will be even more heavily used once the Olympic athletes' village is done and converted to condos after the Olympics.)
Transportation and society are intimately linked, evolving together and informing each other along the way. Any segment of society can be linked to transportation, from the distance of cities from one another (used to be a day's walk would be a good distance), the location of cities (on water routes, rail--why else would Chicago exist?), segregation, the form of cities and the resulting societies that grew up within those cities.
Take Paris. The broad boulevards were established in the 19th century as military routes to prevent any future revolutions. The French Revolution was largely successful because of the intricate web of medieval streets and paths. Only the poor who lived there could figure them out, so the Revolution was not stamped out. Something to think about for the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo (as two examples). Now, however, the grands boulevards of Paris are intricately associated with the culture and society of the city.
Or Chicago. Nature's Metropolis is a wonderful book (if you are a planning and transportation geek like me, that is) about the growth of Chicago and the midwest, all stemming from the railroads and associated economic activities, like meat packing and agricultural trading. That required lots of workers, drawing immigrants from all over the world, and makes Chicago Chicago. Without the railroads, Chicago would not have developed.
And New Orleans--Mississippi River, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Not to mention Rome and most European towns and cities, all connected by the Romans. Oxford is the place where the oxen forded the river...on their way to market in the agricultural transportation system of the day.
There's no questioning the role of the interstate highway system on American culture and society. And then there are cities like Davis, California and Portland Oregon, which proactively planned their transportation system to encourage the kind of society that they wanted.
This is so much fun! Thanks, CC!