The “long-term success” of a nation “isn’t simply based on economic dynamism,” says political scientist Peter Zeihan. It also requires a sound transportation system.
What are the chances that the video I originally posted here would be deleted the day I posted it? Photo by Yathagu.
Zeihan is the author of several books on geopolitics, the study of how geography affects political and international relations. He made these comments on page 8 of his 2014 book, Accidental Superpower. Lately, he has been posting YouTube videos almost daily taking a geopolitical view of current events such as the war in Ukraine, the economic meltdown in China, and the future of the global trading system.
“Successful countries find it easy to move people and goods within their territories,” he continued in the book. “Egypt has the Nile. France has the Seine and Loire. The Roman and Inca empires had their roads. Such easy movement promotes internal trade and development. Trade encourages specialization and moves an economy up the value added scale increasing incomes and generating capital that can be used for everything from building schools and institutions to operating a navy.
“Such constant interconnections are the most important factors for knitting a people into a nation. Such commonality of interests forms the bedrock of political and cultural unity. Every successful culture in human history has been based on a culture of robust internal economic interactions, and that almost invariably comes from easy transport.”
As I’ve pointed out many times before, the war on the automobile is actually a war on mobility. Whether through 15-minute cities, complete streets, or New Urban housing, this war aims to reduce mobility within an urban area. No country in the world has a mass transportation system that is as fast, convenient, and economical as driving. Countries that have taxed driving to fund mass transportation have traded off thousands of miles of per capita automobility in order to gain hundreds of miles of per capita mass transportation mobility.
My work has focused on benefits of mobility for individuals. Zeihan focuses on the benefits of mobility for society as a whole and the very survival of individual nations. Either way, the war on the automobile is a war on America. Those who are waging this war should instead find ways to improve mobility while reducing its environmental impacts.
Here’s my take on 15, 20 minute city… if a guy who can afford a Mercedes or Cadillac can make it to a Starbucks without having to drive its all well and good. But if the barrista working 40 hours a week, can’t afford to live/commute within 15-20 minutes of where he supposed to be, you’re not in a city, you’re in a fukin theme park……
Any “rational planner” will quickly find lots of stuff that people spend resources on that “don’t benefit society” and “can be better spent by the planner”.
We saw this clearly during Covid martial law. Weddings, graduations and and holiday gatherings were BANNEND because they were not deemed “worthwhile” for “society”.
Another way of analyzing their value is that many people find those events to be what living is all about, the whole purpose of even living. But that counts for nothing to societal planners — those events are without benefit at best and wasteful of resources.
It is not just communism — this was USA and Canada and UK just a few years ago. And next time it will be MUCH worse.
Zeihan talks a lot about demographics. He points out that no other developed society has the Millennials.
That is Germany’s boomer didn’t have kids. In many ways what people poo-poo as sprawl is a housing program. Countries like Germany don’t have the sort of population pressures to sprawl. If they did, it’s not clear they wouldn’t do the same.