[gsanghera]

Didn't the US car companies actively lobby against and destroy the budding streetcar transport in most cities? I admit its not exactly rail, but you do have trams / streetcars in many European cities too - like Amsterdam. I would think they would be a much preferred public transport option than everyone driving their own car.

Culture is not something which happens automatically - sometimes its driven by corporates, and the stronger the incentives for the corporates, the harder to resist, until the only one capable of doing so is the government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

[evgen]

This is a rather popular lie that ignores the facts on the ground at the time. No, the US car companies did not lobby against or destroy the streetcar industry, the growth of the suburb and government policies that promoted such growth managed to do that all on their own. The auto manufacturers just set themselves up to take advantage of this decline and the shifting of subsidies to road construction.

In this case culture (the shifting demographics that led to the initial growth of the suburb and the self-perpetuating cultural enshrinement of same) is what led and government/corporations followed.

[gsanghera]

With all due respect - I don't understand this. Why would suburban growth not work with tram / local train lines that could be extended? It worked in London - one of the largest cities in the world which had to plan way ahead of time due to its historically narrow streets. I've lived in suburban London for >7 years, and frankly the only time I really needed to use the car was only to haul grocery home. Almost any other travel (including to work) was always achievable with the tube/bus - some combination of these.

What the ground truth was then isn't recorded in history. There are post-facto interpretations. I would argue if the incentives were laid correctly, there was no reason for suburbanism to necessarily lead to growth in automobile consumption.

The US motor companies had a massive clout. Given a choice back then (and the big roads due to the post-war expansion) it possibly made it easy to convince people that a car was a superior and more personal form of travel (think pre-ubiquitous air-conditioning). That's when you need government to think ahead, especially at the local level.

[ghaff]

A couple of things.

1. A lot of existing big cities post-WWII did, in fact, grow commuter rail out to the expanding suburbs. If you live in the suburbs (say Westchester County in NY) and work at a bank in Manhattan, there is pretty good rail service.

2. But, a lot of the suburban expansion also included companies locating out in the suburbs. For a variety of reasons (including "white flight") a lot of cities became unpopular places for professionals to live so it made sense to locate companies where the people were. NYC almost went bankrupt. Boston was losing population into the 90s. So, for a significant period of time, you had a lot of people dispersed around suburbs (and still do) and that's hard to accommodate with transit.

In Boston, for example, there was not a single major tech employer in the city by the mid 90s or so--when Teradyne moved out--all the "Route 128" companies and others were in the suburbs/exurbs. (I would bet that, at least leaving out biotech/pharma, most tech employment in the Boston area is still in the suburbs--as indeed it is in the Bay Area.)

[gsanghera]

OK - interesting to know indeed. Thanks for the insights!

[mac01021]

Which government policies promoted the growth of the suburbs, out of curiosity?

[ghaff]

A variety of both direct and indirect things. Low interest rates for home purchases, especially veterans (GI Bill). Road construction especially the interstate highway system. Low-cost suburban development, e.g. Levittown. The fact that there was lots of land to build suburbs on.