- 15 Dec 2022 06:45
#15259086
This is an opinion copied from another forum.
It is my opinion that while transportation is certainly an important contributing factor, it is not one of the main causes of the current recession. This is a somewhat contentious issue, because many others believe that the rising fuel costs are the main reason that everything seems to be getting more unaffordable.
The USA relied much more on rail transportation to ship commercial products fifty years ago. wikipedia states:
"1950s and 1960s: Drastic decline in railroad travel in the United States of America, due to automobiles, trucks, and airplanes, as first jetliners take to the air. Railroads respond through mergers and attempts to shut down trains and railroad lines. "
Most trains in the USA were coal powered, and most of the newer ones use diesel to drive a generator, which then powers electric motors. In other words, most trains in the USA run on electricity, at least directly. And it would be relatively easy to convert these large diesel engines to operate on natural gas, much more so than converting smaller truck diesel engines, or especially personal cars. It is much more difficult to try to convert trucks to coal or electric motors because of the difference in size scale.
One of the real reasons for trucks surpassing the use of rail transportation, besides the expansion of a cross-continental highway network, was the availability of cheaper labor. It takes many more truck drivers to transport everything, and these drivers no longer earn the middle class wages of the drivers in the 1960's. From 1980 to 1984, average wages for truck drivers fell 12.4%. There has also been a massive phenomena of de-unionization in the last two decades. Wages in 1995 were 28% below the level they had been in 1978. An increasing number of minorities have been available to fill jobs.
"How Did Truck Drivers' Jobs Become So Bad? The Effects of Deregulation"
There is no doubt rising fuel costs have limited economic activity, but in many ways the price of petroleum has been used as a distracting issue from the other problems. Much easier to blame a foreign phenomena than to recognise falling wages as more workers desperately compete for a shrinking number of decent jobs.
If fuel costs really was responsible for most of the problems, one would expect the price of land to be much more affordable, since its price is not directly dependant on transportation costs. But this has not been the case.
One of the main problems of overcrowding has been the overexpansion of cities, such that natural resources become necessary to transport in from long distances. These resources include lumber, fresh food, often water, and even the gravel used in cement. It becomes expensive to live in these cities, which have grown beyond the maximum size which their adjacent surrounding region can self-sustain. And most of the newer urban areas have not been designed well to enable people to live in such areas without a car.
So much of the supposed reliance on fuel is actually the result of limited economic opportunities being overconcentrated in certain areas, and poor urban planning.
Rising crime, deteriorating school districts, and rising land prices in the main cities resulted in the flight of the middle class into the suburbs, which lengthened work commuting times, necessitating the use of more petrol.
Many western countries, including the USA, managed to provide ample opportunity before the widespread use of liquid petroleum powered transportation. We have to ask ourselves what has changed since that time.
In the future, Americans may likely have to live closer to where they work, similar to the time before car ownership was so widespread. People will still have cars, they will merely be more reluctant to drive longer distances for cost of fuel. People will find they can no longer afford to live in the cities, and vegetable fields and orchards will spring up around the growing smaller towns to provide local customers with food. The American North will no doubt rediscover the lost virtues of greenhouses, when it no longer becomes affordable to import tropical fruits from outside low-wage countries. If all this sounds idealistic, it is. All of this will no doubt make everything more expensive than it was before cheap truck transportation, but there will also be many less quantifiable benefits, such as more open space, less noise and pollution.
It is my opinion that while transportation is certainly an important contributing factor, it is not one of the main causes of the current recession. This is a somewhat contentious issue, because many others believe that the rising fuel costs are the main reason that everything seems to be getting more unaffordable.
The USA relied much more on rail transportation to ship commercial products fifty years ago. wikipedia states:
"1950s and 1960s: Drastic decline in railroad travel in the United States of America, due to automobiles, trucks, and airplanes, as first jetliners take to the air. Railroads respond through mergers and attempts to shut down trains and railroad lines. "
Most trains in the USA were coal powered, and most of the newer ones use diesel to drive a generator, which then powers electric motors. In other words, most trains in the USA run on electricity, at least directly. And it would be relatively easy to convert these large diesel engines to operate on natural gas, much more so than converting smaller truck diesel engines, or especially personal cars. It is much more difficult to try to convert trucks to coal or electric motors because of the difference in size scale.
One of the real reasons for trucks surpassing the use of rail transportation, besides the expansion of a cross-continental highway network, was the availability of cheaper labor. It takes many more truck drivers to transport everything, and these drivers no longer earn the middle class wages of the drivers in the 1960's. From 1980 to 1984, average wages for truck drivers fell 12.4%. There has also been a massive phenomena of de-unionization in the last two decades. Wages in 1995 were 28% below the level they had been in 1978. An increasing number of minorities have been available to fill jobs.
"How Did Truck Drivers' Jobs Become So Bad? The Effects of Deregulation"
There is no doubt rising fuel costs have limited economic activity, but in many ways the price of petroleum has been used as a distracting issue from the other problems. Much easier to blame a foreign phenomena than to recognise falling wages as more workers desperately compete for a shrinking number of decent jobs.
If fuel costs really was responsible for most of the problems, one would expect the price of land to be much more affordable, since its price is not directly dependant on transportation costs. But this has not been the case.
One of the main problems of overcrowding has been the overexpansion of cities, such that natural resources become necessary to transport in from long distances. These resources include lumber, fresh food, often water, and even the gravel used in cement. It becomes expensive to live in these cities, which have grown beyond the maximum size which their adjacent surrounding region can self-sustain. And most of the newer urban areas have not been designed well to enable people to live in such areas without a car.
So much of the supposed reliance on fuel is actually the result of limited economic opportunities being overconcentrated in certain areas, and poor urban planning.
Rising crime, deteriorating school districts, and rising land prices in the main cities resulted in the flight of the middle class into the suburbs, which lengthened work commuting times, necessitating the use of more petrol.
Many western countries, including the USA, managed to provide ample opportunity before the widespread use of liquid petroleum powered transportation. We have to ask ourselves what has changed since that time.
In the future, Americans may likely have to live closer to where they work, similar to the time before car ownership was so widespread. People will still have cars, they will merely be more reluctant to drive longer distances for cost of fuel. People will find they can no longer afford to live in the cities, and vegetable fields and orchards will spring up around the growing smaller towns to provide local customers with food. The American North will no doubt rediscover the lost virtues of greenhouses, when it no longer becomes affordable to import tropical fruits from outside low-wage countries. If all this sounds idealistic, it is. All of this will no doubt make everything more expensive than it was before cheap truck transportation, but there will also be many less quantifiable benefits, such as more open space, less noise and pollution.
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