counts infinitely

2 out of 3 of my commuting days this week, I’ve rode the 99 B-Line to the University. At peak rush (7:45 - 8:30). Yesterday, I also took the 44 from the University to downtown: a New Flyer regular length, not articulated double-length as they often run during rush on that route.

It really struck me at those times, clinging to some semblance of balance on the handgrip, the politics of overcrowding. We who choose to live in the cities, to go to the largest university in British Columbia, to get white-collar or service industry jobs (or, increasingly in Vancouver, to take the risky path of starting our own businesses or to work as consultants, because this town is practically post-corporate), to walk, bus or bike to work and play, to have our employers subsidize our transit passes (if they’re big enough) rather than our downtown parking spots (if they’re lucky enough to have any) — we get overcrowding, a poorly designed train that is practically at capacity the day it opens, the risk of injury and airborne disease transmission. For our attempt at making the city efficient in its expenditure of resources, we get…

A government that prioritizes highway building through the lungs of our region. Or more single-family housing development in Squamish, so more people — those who can afford to pollute the air for the people who actually want and love living here — can raise their kids in a bucolic setting surrounded by others of a similar background and income.

Media mediate a bit: they tell city-dwellers what to think of people living in rural areas, and they tell those beyond city limits what to think of people who live in the city. But their grown-in cultures also have a lot to say about it. I once dated someone from Surrey, and his palpable disdain for Vancouver was an incredible education for me, having grown up living in and loving its neighbourhoods.

Above all else, it was the most profound case of us disagreeing on the means, but agreeing profoundly on the ends. Sure, let’s keep the rural parts rural. But that means for the rest of us, we build up, or burn dinosaurs until we drown.

</rant>

smartercities:

jhnbrssndn:

hatethefuture:

Prepare For The Future No. 1: Overcrowding

Hate The Future is proud to present Prepare For The Future, a new feature designed to get you thinking critically about how to handle the terrible, terrible future that awaits us all.

With the world’s population on track to hit 9 billion within the next thirty years, crowded things (trains, concerts, 8th Avenue in midtown Manhattan on Thursday night when the Ed Hardy bros have already been kicked out of each of their ten favorite bars in succession) are going to be choked with intolerable amounts of easily despised people.  Stranger Rage will be at an all-time high.

This Malthusian horror raises an obvious question: in a crowded setting, how many people could you shove to the ground before being subdued yourself?

Extra credit follow-up: would you shove just anybody, or only people smaller than yourself?  Show your work.