In fact, the suburbs are not as terrible as urban boosters frequently insist.

Consider the environment. We tend to associate suburbia with carbon dioxide-producing sprawl and urban areas with sustainability and green living. But though it’s true that urban residents use less gas to get to work than their suburban or rural counterparts, when it comes to overall energy use the picture gets more complicated. Studies in Australia and Spain have found that when you factor in apartment common areas, second residences, consumption, and air travel, urban residents can easily use more energy than their less densely packed neighbors. Moreover, studies around the world — from Beijing and Rome to London and Vancouver — have found that packed concentrations of concrete, asphalt, steel, and glass produce what are known as “heat islands,” generating 6 to 10 degrees Celsius more heat than surrounding areas and extending as far as twice a city’s political boundaries.

When it comes to inequality, cities might even be the problem. In the West, the largest cities today also tend to suffer the most extreme polarization of incomes. In 1980, Manhattan ranked 17th among U.S. counties for income disparity; by 2007 it was first, with the top fifth of wage earners earning 52 times what the bottom fifth earned. In Toronto between 1970 and 2001, according to one recent study, middle-income neighborhoods shrank by half, dropping from two-thirds of the city to one-third, while poor districts more than doubled to 40 percent. By 2020, middle-class neighborhoods could fall to about 10 percent.

http://foxandhoundsdaily.com/blog/joel-kotkin/7621-urban-legends-why-suburbs-not-dense-cities-are-future

Use high taxes, density and mass transit, and everyone will abandon their cars and move into the city.

Case in point, high density, high tax, high transit Boston Massachusetts.

Just look at these empty highways…I can see a tumbleweed rolling down the left lane:

http://74.8.145.59/cam_updated_images/222.jpg

It’s like the Day the Earth Stood Still!

They must all be on MBTA…nope, no cars there.

[Image from http://www1.eot.state.ma.us/ ]

Hmmmm the Mayor think must be: “we really are soft on crime but if you are a transient wood carver, we will shoot you because dammit!, i am sick and tired of those whitlers messing up our city and tasering is just not good enough.”

Developers have thrown a wrench into this, by being allowed to build very overpriced and lesser quality housing near current and planned transportation corridors. The zoning changes and loopholes were terrible and only now are they realizing the upzoning is not going to accomplish anything for the majority of people it was designed to benefit.

The “market” is not a solution now, and with the current status quo as a result, was not before. Most of the middle and lower income people you want to keep can’t keep up with the “market,” which is STILL artifically inflated and greed driven.

Progressives care that privatizing state liquor stores would cost the state at least $150 – 275 million for the next five years, but eliminating all state liquor taxes, as I-1105 does, costs $500 to $700 million. Assuming Tim Eyman’s gridlock initiative makes it impossible to pass new liquor taxes, and assuming that Democratic majority shrinks or disappears, no Republicans are going to step forward to help meet his 2/3 requirement to reinstate them.

Progressives care, and everyone should care, that I-1105, and to a lesser extend I-1100, will the state to eliminate its Basic Health Plan for adults, Adult Day Health, child care for moms on welfare, low-income housing subsidies, supports for the Disability Lifeline and much more. Cities and counties are already cutting prosecutor and public safety line positions. We can’t afford I-1105.

Progressives care that eliminating the sales tax on candy, soda and bottled water, as I-1107 does, not only costs the state over $100 million a year, but cities and counties another $83 million over five years. Worse, Ref. 52 that would pay for renovating pre-1970s school buildings, making them safer, healthier and more energy-efficient, depends on making the bottled-water tax permanent to fund its 30,000 stimulus jobs in the hardest-hit construction industry.

Do progressives care that our economy begins to recover, that we maintain basic health services and that we maintain taxes on things that are optional and not life-sustaining? Heck, yes!

I’ve lived here for 43 years and I’ve never been one to really understand this. Seattle is one of the most liberal cities in America. Liberal politics generally go hand in hand with progressive, anti-monied politics. Don’t believe me? Try living in a similarly sized city in the Midwest or South-East.

It never seemed to me like “monied interests” held any particular sway in this town. And for those very few that do (e.g., Vulcan), it seems like this Mayor gets along with them just fine.

When I was a kid here, the social justice Catholics had significant influence. But, that waned long ago.

Unions had influence, and although they still do they aren’t nearly as powerful as they once were.

Downtown developers had a lot of influence one time – not so long ago. But with the general desire to clean up downtown and add density, that was something of a win-win. Less so now. No money in it.

Maybe I’ve not noticed the “monied interests” cabal. Or, maybe, like the silk stocking crowd I’ve just misidentified where they are? When you see one of them, can you point them out to me?

I bet they look just like the Monopoly Man.