alt Hacker NewsThey're a prime sign of broken economics.
The people who can least afford to move closer to their jobs are the ones who are regressively taxed in time, energy, and money the most.
A proper solution would be to require more housing NEAR the jobs to make it easier for people to save time and money by moving closer.
Replies
Nah. Roads, specifically giant limited access highways through urban cities cost lots money to build. it makes perfect sense for them to be funded by user fees. Urban land is at a premium, if you want to utilize it you have to pay for it. Mass transit is a much more space efficient way to move people in urban environments, and encourages people to walk more in their daily life which has tons of health benefits. Also transit really help urban air quality (even electric cars cause air quality issues because of the rubber tires)
Why don’t we create the housing at the jobs then?
Require housing in certain places? Now that's what I'd call broken economics. If there is such a need for housing near job centers...why wouldn't that automatically create the incentive to build it? (Hint: It does; the problem is that in most places there are "requirements" that make it nearly impossible to build new housing. Texas is notable in that it lacks the worst extremes of this problem, hence the recent trends in rent in Austin).