Comments on: Exceptionalism Cont. http://mattschiavenza.com/2010/03/10/exceptionalism-cont/ From the Dragon to the Apple- A Sinophile in New York Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:30:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Chris Biddle http://mattschiavenza.com/2010/03/10/exceptionalism-cont/comment-page-1/#comment-109860 Chris Biddle Fri, 09 Apr 2010 06:57:37 +0000 http://mattschiavenza.com/?p=795#comment-109860 I agree that we need more mass transit in America, but unfortunately because our infrastructure was based upon the idea that everyone has a car, it will be much harder now for the United States to implement more mass transit. Much of the rail systems in Europe and elsewhere were built before the invention, or rather the proliferation, of the automobile, which means that populations tended to be highly concentrated around the train tracks. After World War II, the period of America's largest growth, city planners and developers needn't concentrate their populations around the train tracks because it was assumed that all Americans had cars, thus giving birth to the suburbs. Even if a massive overhaul of American mass transit took place, Americans will still have to walk farther to the nearest train station than any European would. Of course you could take a bus to the nearest train station, but that doesn't change the fact that we've grown accustomed to driving our own cars where ever we want to go, and the layout of our cities and towns encourages us to do so. I agree that we need more mass transit in America, but unfortunately because our infrastructure was based upon the idea that everyone has a car, it will be much harder now for the United States to implement more mass transit. Much of the rail systems in Europe and elsewhere were built before the invention, or rather the proliferation, of the automobile, which means that populations tended to be highly concentrated around the train tracks. After World War II, the period of America’s largest growth, city planners and developers needn’t concentrate their populations around the train tracks because it was assumed that all Americans had cars, thus giving birth to the suburbs. Even if a massive overhaul of American mass transit took place, Americans will still have to walk farther to the nearest train station than any European would. Of course you could take a bus to the nearest train station, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’ve grown accustomed to driving our own cars where ever we want to go, and the layout of our cities and towns encourages us to do so.

]]> By: Jascha http://mattschiavenza.com/2010/03/10/exceptionalism-cont/comment-page-1/#comment-105526 Jascha Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:11:42 +0000 http://mattschiavenza.com/?p=795#comment-105526 Speaking of American exceptionalism, have you been following what has been going on here in Texas to the school curriculum? The Christian coalition has a majority, and are rewriting the textbooks to promote American exceptionalism and Christian values. Thomas Jefferson almost completely disappears, and the separation of church and state was recently made up. This goes along with fun things like justifying McCarthysism due to communist infiltration of the government, justifying Japanese internment during WWII because some Germans and Italians were also interred, and almost completely leaving out anything to do with Latino-American history... in a state that is getting close to half Latino! Man, if I were to have kids, I would stop whatever I was doing and get the hell out of here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?pagewanted=all Speaking of American exceptionalism, have you been following what has been going on here in Texas to the school curriculum? The Christian coalition has a majority, and are rewriting the textbooks to promote American exceptionalism and Christian values. Thomas Jefferson almost completely disappears, and the separation of church and state was recently made up. This goes along with fun things like justifying McCarthysism due to communist infiltration of the government, justifying Japanese internment during WWII because some Germans and Italians were also interred, and almost completely leaving out anything to do with Latino-American history… in a state that is getting close to half Latino! Man, if I were to have kids, I would stop whatever I was doing and get the hell out of here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?pagewanted=all

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