[sustran] Fw: Sprawl in Hungary

Wendell Cox wcox at publicpurpose.com
Mon Jan 31 11:11:48 JST 2000


> Sorry for the discordant view... but...
>
> I understand that a lot of people think of autos and roads as being the
> equivalent of the "Great Satan," but that does not change the facts.
> Contrary to the claims in the "sprawl in Hungary" article...
>
> The highways in Calif and Texas, not to mention across the US were paid
for
> by users --- through taxes assessed on fuel alone for the purpose of
> building the roads. These taxes are specific to fuel, and not charged on
> other commodities. A small percentage of user fees is tolls. Data for the
> past five years is available at....
>
> http://www.publicpurpose.com/hwy-us$93&c.htm
>
> There is some general taxation support of roads, but it is approximately
> canceled by the diversion of user revenues to other sources, such as mass
> transit. Moreover, virtually all general taxation support of roads is for
> LOCAL roadways, not for the motorways that are the backbone of the
national
> system.
>
> It is an inventive argument to connect sprawl to the S&L crisis. While
some
> weak connection might be made, the fact is that suburban expansion was at
> its weakest in the 1980s, and much of the development would have occured
> without the S&L crisis. The problem was that the national insurance
program
> was poorly administered... it was one of our most unfortunate government
> failures, and we have had a few. A couple of larger ones have been the
> abysmal failure of central city education and explosion of central city
> crime rates from 1960 to 1990, which in and of themselves were of
sufficient
> concern to drive millions of people out of the central cities into the
> suburbs. One would hope that the same will not occur in Hungary, and that
as
> a result, the inevitable movement to suburbs that is attendant to
increased
> affluence will simply reflect preferences in the market, rather than the
> "bleeding" that has resulted from government failure in US central cities
> (FYI, the city of St. Louis will show a population of 325k in 2000, down
> from 857k in 1950 --- virtually all US inner cities have declined in
> population, though the trend has been masked by annexation in some).
>
> Best regards,
> Wendell Cox
> --
> WENDELL COX CONSULTANCY: International Public Policy, Economics, Labor,
> Transport & Strategic Planning
>
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> ----- Original Message -----
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> > Winter, 2000
> > > *   Hungarian Sprawl:  Another S & L Crisis in the Making?
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