Can New Mobility Tech Disrupt Car Dependence?
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A new organization want to help cities use mobility tech to break cars' stranglehold on cities.
Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Economics
What Comes After the Auto Bubble?
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Vehicle travel in the United States has experienced a resurgence in the last two-and-a-half years, following an unprecedented decade-long per-capita decline in driving. Low gas prices are likely a big reason why; recent increases in incomes and employment as well. But an additional factor has been relatively unexplored: the effect of changes in credit markets on vehicle purchasing and ownership.
Amazon Could Kill Car-Dependent Big Box Retail. Will It Also Kill Main Street?
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Amazon is chipping away at the dominance of big box stores, which might warm the hearts of people who watched Walmart and other retailers ruthlessly suck the life out of walkable downtowns for years on end. But is it really a good thing?
How Cutting Back on Driving Helps the Economy
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Cross-posted from City Observatory As Americans drive less and spend less on fuel, they have about $150 billion annually to spend in other ways. There are two kinds of economics: macroeconomics, which deals in big national and global quantities, like gross domestic product, and microeconomics, which focuses on a smaller scale, like how the prices […]
The Importance of Driving to the U.S. Economy Started Waning in the 70s
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Earlier this year, following a slight uptick in U.S. traffic volumes, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a press release, “More people driving means our economy is picking up speed.” He’s not the only person to equate traffic with economic growth. Even former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg once said, “We like traffic, it […]
How Much Would It Cost to Minneapolize the Country?
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What would it cost to retrofit the entire United States to be reasonably bikeable? It all began with this idle question on Twitter. Bike advocates in the U.S. love to talk about incremental changes, small victories, baby steps. But, I wondered, what if we went further? What if we just went ahead and retrofitted the […]