Once again, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has addressed automotive issues. This time, Friedman weighs-in on the ultra-cheap car being posited for the rapidly-growing Indian market. The gist of Friedman’s proposal: tax the stuffing out of the cheap car and put the money into mass-transit. Like most of Friedman’s auto-related rants, this one combines a handful of valid points, a couple of keen observations, a soupcon of knee-jerk utopianism and enough muddled thinking to make it impossible to support his views.
Like most Western intellectuals familiar with (if not actual users of) their home town public transportation systems, Friedman believes government has a right (if not an obligation) to manipulate urban transportation patterns for its citizen’s well-being. If these pro-mass transit thinkers harbored any doubts about the costs or consequences of this intercession, the prospect of automotive pollution and global warming removed them.
And so the New York Times scribe surveys India’s chaotic conurbations, imagines adding millions of private vehicles, and concludes that the Indian government should heavily tax cars to prevent this eventuality.
Never mind that taxing cars beyond the reach of the middle class is a fundamentally elitist proposition, reserving personal transportation for the small percentage of India’s “haves.” Preventing India’s urban areas from generating even MORE pollution serves the greater good. Besides, Friedman says that the money will (should?) get plowed back into mass transit, which is better for the middle class– and everyone else– than owning a car.
Have a look at the picture. Why would any member of India’s middle class want to spend their hard-earned money on a car for commuting? Immobility would limit their ability to earn enough money to pay for the car. So unless a car aids an Indian consumer’s ability to commute, they won’t buy it for that purpose. In other words, congestion creates a natural limit to car ownership. An extra tax is both discriminatory and unnecessary.
Of course, Friedman is presuming that cars = commuting. Given gridlock, perhaps Indians will buy the new, cheaper car for something other than slogging back and forth to employment: commerce, shopping, trips to distant relatives, etc. For these tasks, mass transit is not the ideal solution. If mass transit WAS the answer, people wouldn’t buy a car. This is especially true at the economic margins, where India’s new, inexpensive car will find favor. Would Friedman discourage these sorts of trips for the greater good? Apparently so.
Whether or not you agree with that consequence of Friedman’s call for draconian private automobile taxation, Friedman’s argument fails to consider a key reason why a middle class Indian WOULD opt for a cheap car over mass transit (gridlock be damned).
To assure sufficient rider volumes and maintain political equilibrium, India’s mass transit network is widely affordable. Over six million commuters use the Mumbai Suburban Railway every day; it has the highest passenger density in the world. In a country with an entire class of people called “untouchables,” middle class Indians who have the means to buy the new inexpensive car do not now, nor will they ever, prefer to share mass-transit with tens of thousands of less fortunate souls.
It's not PC to say it, but Friedman’s plan for more Indian mass transit wouldn't keep India’s middle class off the roads. Increasing mass transit will simply increase the number of less wealthy people flooding into urban centers– exponentially. The consequences of this increase are unknown, but given that there are many types of pollution (including human waste), it’s entirely possible that a larger mass transportation system may not be in the environment’s best interest.
It may pain a writer living in a "first world" country to admit it, but environmental concerns must be always be balanced against economic prosperity– if only because most citizens value the latter more than the former (sorry, that’s the way it is). In that sense it’s worth asking if traffic congestion actually HELPS India. The more urban congestion, the more business and people move away to outlying areas, where prices are cheaper and transportation more efficient. If it works for Atlanta, Houston, LA, London, Paris and Moscow, why wouldn’t– doesn’t it work in India?
Anyway, the whole frame of reference for this debate is seriously off-kilter.
Intellectuals who learned their history in the big city tend to forget that inexpensive personal transportation has the greatest impact outside urban areas. Out past city limits, cars open up an entire world of possibilities and, thus, raise the quality of life. For America’s vast rural population, Henry Ford’s Model T created new economic markets for labor and goods, fostered social mobility, improved public health and increased genetic diversity. By shrinking distances, a cheap Indian car would liberate time that the rural poor could use for more efficient economic endeavor and/or education.
Any government looking to improve the well-being of its citizenry should think long and hard about raising the “floor” to automobile ownership. As should Tom Friedman.
[You can read Mr. Friedman's column here.]
85 Comments on “Why NYT Scribe Tom Friedman is Wrong. Again....”
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I respected Friedman until he started writing on automotive issues where he is clearly out of his depth. Thanks, Robert, for bringing some reason to the issue.
PS: how many Indian politicians will vote to tax autos based on the rantings of a NYT editor? How many middle class Indians will decide against buying the car they’ve been saving towards for 5 years, because of an article they read in the NYT?
Thanks for this, Robert. I really don’t think Friedman has the chops to talk cars.
Like I’ve said before on TTAC, it wasn’t until the rise of the Indian middle class that a car would be bought without a servant/driver to go with. We are witnessing the same cultural change that America had 100 years ago. Friedman might as well tell America (circa 1911) to tax the Model T to keep congestion down. Do you think America–especially our Middle Class–would be where it is today with such a restriction?
No way in hell. And his cell-phone analogy doesn’t hold water, because of the infrastructure and governmental hurdles. More after this quote:
Friedman: We have no right to tell Indians what cars to make or drive. But we can urge them to think hard about following our model, without a real mass transit alternative in place.
Its a great idea, but India’s infrastructure isn’t there. The government has had decades to improve their people’s way of life (including mass-transit) but so many (a majority?) live in Third World conditions.
The government has to be kicked in the ass to get anything done. Including mass transit. I encourage Mr. Friedman to spend a week with an Indian middle class worker: do their crappy call center job, ride a filthy bus/train with desperately poor people who beg/steal to survive, and all that.
I’d like to see Friedman tell that person they shouldn’t be able to afford a cheap car.
Then to talk to an Indian politician to see if they’ll do something to fix the real problem: class disparity.
The only way to get the government off their collective asses is to have cheap cars. A mobilized Indian middle class will change the country for the better…just like it did in America over 100 years ago.
The more urban congestion, the more business and people move away to outlying areas, where prices are cheaper and transportation more efficient. If it works for Atlanta, Houston, LA, London, Paris and Moscow, why wouldn’t– doesn’t it work in India?
It doesn’t work for cities such as LA and Atlanta (and Chicago and Seattle and an abundance of American cities.) They are hitting saturation points, e.g. gridlock, and car dependency generates long commutes (read: economic losses) and over utilized infrastructure that effectively subsidizes the commuters at the expense of lost time and environmental damage.
London and Paris both have extensive transit systems, and London has its (in)famous “congestion charge.” Those two are exemplars of what Friedman is talking about — high driving taxes — and they actually seem to work better than do a lot of American cities that don’t have meaningful public transit.
There are no optimal answers, but more cars on roads that can’t handle them, burning oil that is becoming increasingly expensive, is absolutely not the answer. Particularly when that country has a population that is triple that of the US, which is developing its appetite for resources rapidly, has nuclear weapons, and just happens to have a near-mortal enemy that is also one of the US’ key allies in its current wars.
In the case of India with its ridiculous but pervasive caste system, the non-PC answer would be to have a very nice quasi-mass transit system that is priced at a point high enough to keep the lower echelons from using it, and possibly to offer rebate schemes that effectively transfer back funds back to these middle class users in such a way that the refund isn’t readily available to the poor whom you don’t want using it.
This is an important message. People will use mass transit when traveling alone, and going to exactly the destination that the route can take them. Oh, and did I include that it better not be raining or snowing or it is also a bad idea in that case too. Late night public transit isn’t safe for anyone that can fill a bra. Also, cars are better if you are carrying…. well, anything. Did I say that it is almost always noisier, germier, dirtier (clothing smudges are SO fun), and almost never as cheap as planners originally stated that they would be. (One recent trip on the SF Bay area system was $5, one way.) The social cost of moving people much more slowly than cars do is very large since people are a societies greatest resource and public transit is generally slower point to point than cars are.
The list is nearly endless of why public transit is one of the bigger lies ever foisted on cities, or rural areas for that matter.
As for India, public transit is beyond stupid. The families are moderately large, the country is spread out, many public areas are less than safe, but… I repeat myself from above.
The only plan that might actually help India is to use Friedman’s gas tax to greatly subsidize car prices for the poor to buy even more cars, not to improve mass transit.
What cars really do is to enable sprawl. Just as cars did not prevent the mass movement to Amercican cities during the 20th century, they will not prevent populations shifts in India.
One of America’s biggest problems is that we have crafted a lifestyle (sprawl) that absolutely requires car ownership. I can’t imagine what will happen when there are 300 million cars on the Indian roads. They don’t even have a fraction of our road infrastructure.
Sure, someone like Friedman can come off as pompous, but what he is saying needs to be considered rather than dismissed out of hand. Here in the US we spend more and more of each week stuck in traffic. To ignore the fact that the water in our bath is slowly coming to a boil makes us no smarter than the hypothetical frog.
Luckily (for us), India will ignore Friedman’s advice thereby providing us with a great example of what happens when you ignore catastrophic problems.
It must be nice to make a million dollars a year and not have to worry about pesky things like personal transportation. Private jets and limos make the whole day better, plus allow you the privilege of telling the lumpenproletariat what to do. Elitists like Thomas Friedman seem to miss a central point, the desires for automobiles and single family residences tend to be universal. Sooo, the only way to not let those desires be manifested is for the folks with the guns, i.e. government, not allow those choices. Way to stand up for incipient fascism there, Tommy!
As is usual with Friedman’s self-righteous zeal and cacophony of inscrutable metaphors, I’m not sure what he is actually analyzing, nor what policy he is prescribing.
If you notice, the only policy he makes specific reference to is by quoting Sunita Narain, who suggests expanding public transit, financed with “high prices for parking, [and] a proper road tax for driving,” followed thankfully by “and then let the market work.” He inaptly summarizes this as “taxing it [the car] like crazy.”
This is in fact not crazy. If you want to reduce congestion, the only efficient policy is a tax on congestion. If the revenues are redeployed for public transit which, presumably, is used by more poor people than rich, then it is a progressive redistribution.
What is crazy is taxing innovation and progress by taxing a new product directly simply because it is new; however, upon subsequent readings it is not clear, at least to me, that this is what he is actually recommending.
Haven’t the people of India (And Pakistan) been harmed enough by the Cambridge/Oxford/Yale/Harvard/BBC/NYT Fabian “Axis of Evil”? The NYT should come with a warning label “WARNING: Reading the NYT will turn you into a government-worshiping elitist fool”.
Personal transportation is the key to strength and prosperity and prosperity is the key to controlling birth-rates/population density.
I can’t comment on India or the NYT (i’m Canadian), but I will say that I used to be of the Homer Simpson school of thought. “But Marge, public transportation is for losers.” That was until moving to Vancouver. There are benefits and drawbacks to both, and I miss my car alot, but I wouldn’t want to share the roads with the majority of drivers here. Witnessed one accident and two close calls and that was just an hour downtown! I don’t envy the drivers who are sitting in their cars on a gridlocked highway as I’m passing by on the skytrain.
robert – i agree with much of what you say. the only point of departure between us is within the following declaration: “…environmental concerns must be always be balanced against economic prosperity – if only because most citizens value the latter more than the former (sorry, that’s the way it is).”
my opinion: only up to a point. the ‘money’ seems more important as long as the ‘environment’ remains acceptable. but once people realize they are chronically ill because they can’t breathe clean air; or they lose access to potable water; or the congestion that constantly surrounds them becomes suffocatingly intolerable and/or they become immobile – then suddenly, people begin to wise up and become willing to clear, and clean, things up.
my only fear is that humanity seems to push this sort of thing to the brink before they finally come to their collective senses and admit they need to step back and reconsider the situation – and by then, it may be too late.
There are no easy answers, but I suspect India would be better off if cars remain scarce. And certainly the world would be better off.
The list of reasons Mimizhusband gives above not to tax cars can easily be countered with another list–gridlock, more air pollution (that will probably cause more deaths than the bacteria that get exchanged on public transit and which is plaguing China, and that Chinese air pollution is coming over to the US), car accidents (the rate is much higher in India than in the US, Canada, or western Europe), greater difficulty in moving goods around the country (because trucks moving goods will get gridlocked).
You could always hire a car when you needed to travel or move a large amount of stuff, as my Brooklyn grandparents did when they went to the Catskills in the summer (they were both teachers). Then, too, in a country dependent on cars, there are always those–usually the poor and the infirm, who are handicapped relative to others by their lack of access to cars and driving.
And furthermore, when people don't walk as much, or ride bicycles, or something, they are less healthy, which is part of what accounts for the fact that Manhattanites are healthier than most of the rest of hte country.
That picture says it all. If that’ s what driving is like NOW in an Indian city, imagine what it will be like when there are tens or hundreds of millions of cars.
You may think I’m crazy, but I see parallels between Friedman’s proposed ‘car tax’ and calls that many have made for a significant increase in fuel tax.
Even crazier still is that I think RF inadvertently made the argument against increased fuel taxes with this article.
In Toronto, I recently tried the GO Bus as an alternative to my fully equipped E39 5-series. I spent an hour sitting next to a passenger slurping on noodles and dog chunks, listening to the obnoxious whine of the GMC supercharged diesel, overhearing dozens of cell phone conversations, and generally hating my fellow citizens.
This is the socialist utopia that the environmentalists dream of, while they, the elites, cruise the Gardener Expressway in my BMW.
Not a chance, Comrade.
The elite’s in the Democratic People’s Republic of New York (comrade state to the People’s Republic of New Jersey) are always hating on the suburban automobile owner. They’ve now extended that hatred to dirt poor Indians.
To be blunt, as a Garden Stater familiar with NYC, Tom Friedman talks out of his ass about 75% of the time. He has no conception of how the world works north of 125th street or west of the Lincoln Tunnel. His utopia of of mass transit presumes that the rest of the world is like midtown Manhattan, where employment, shopping, healthcare, and leisure can all be had in a 3 mile radius. Oh, and that everyone in the world can afford to live there.
Tom Friedman’s lack of intellectual honesty is evident in the recent decision of the NYT to stop charging for access to his rants, err, editorials. The internet has determined the true value of his opinion, which is remarkeably close to 0. Granted so are my rants, but unlike Tome Friedman I don’t pretend I know all and hold a real job during the week.
Actually, Friedman spent years reporting from Beirut when it was like a milder version of the current Baghdad. There are valuable arguments on both sides of this issue, but labeling people as “hating on the suburban automobile owner” takes the place of seeking a better understanding of the issues. And the NYT’s decision, I believe, has more to do with how the internet works, and the wide availability of free info on it than it does with anything specific to Tom Friedman. Oh, I agree that there are people around who, due to their own psychological baggage, would like to force others to drive electric golf carts or take the bus. I don’t think Friedman is one of them, even if he has blinders in some areas, and even if he had such an attitude, I think it would still be worth evaluating what he says on the merits, rather than dismissing him as a car-hating kill-joy.
If Friedman is wrong, it does more good to punch holes in his logic than to dismiss him as some sort of jerk, or ivory tower dweller.
David Holzman :
If Friedman is wrong, it does more good to punch holes in his logic than to dismiss him as some sort of jerk, or ivory tower dweller.
I think his logic led many commentators to this conclusion. Still, it's a valid point.
Johnny Canada (And P.J. O’Rourke) make a good point:
Pedestrians Suck!
I’m a car enthusiast and I fully support Friedman’s position. He’s just brave enough to say what borders on blasphemy to most gas guzzling Americans.
It’s simple economics, really. More people having cars is both a good thing (people can get around more quickly and conveniently), and also a bad thing (more pollution, traffic, etc). The problem is that the positive in this case is private, since the owner of the car personally reaps the benefits of ownership, while the downside is socialized, since all of society pays the cost of increased pollution, infrastructure, etc. This is a classic “Tragedy of the commons”. We all know what *should* be done, but there’s no economic incentive for each individual to do the right thing, so we all sit around looking at each other like frogs in a pressure cooker while everything goes to shit.
The best solution is more taxes – I would say taxes on fuel are the best way to do it. I hope all governments everywhere do the economically smart thing and jack up fuel taxes. An increase of 50% – 100% in fuel taxes here in Canada sounds about right to me. A fuel tax is the most efficient way of allocating fuel use to the most economically productive users. That’s all that’s needed – no more CAFE standards, no more governments telling us what kind of cars we should buy or how many people we should ride with, just tax the hell out of fuel and let the market sort out the rest.
As a car enthusiast and someone who has always owned big ol’ V8s and/or turboed-to-the-gills I4s, This would be great for me – There’s no more stigma attached to enjoying a public good without contributing to the public good, since I pay the same for fuel as anyone else.
The real root of the problem are the people who are trying to SAVE gas.
No one who owns a Ferrari or Escalade is going to stop driving them, because these users are not AT THE MARGIN, and the margin is where the tax is going to have the most effect. Of course, we know that these people are not the problem – how many Ferraris are on the road versus how many Camrys?
The people who ARE going to feel the impact are all those that we here on this site despise – the Camry drivers and the SUV driving soccer moms who hate driving and should really be riding the bus. I’d be more than happy to pay 2x what I pay for gas now (since my cars are pleasure vehicles only, and are lucky to be driven once or twice a week) if that means fewer of the above mentioned on the road.
The net effect is that North America is turned into Europe – people who have cars REALLY like having them, people who don’t like cars take public transit. The common resource (clean air, free roads) will be efficiently allocated to those who can either afford to enjoy it, or can derive enough economic benefit to make it worthwile, and no one will be jumping into their Hummer to drive 3 blocks to the 7-11 because gas will be too expensive to be wasted on that kind of stupidity. Of course TTAC members will all be zooming around our pristine, mirror-like highways in our 350hp AWD Ford Focus.
Good on Mr Friedman for sticking to his Economist principles and saying what needs to be said.
The rise of the automobile has been quite possibly the most transformative event in Americal history (second to the Civil War or Revolution, I suppose, but still…) But it has also been the most destructive. Let us not forget that for a large portion of any population (under 16, over 80, handicapped, etc.) that those unable to drive may well face a virtual prison if adequate public transportation is not available. Cities have withered and died before the mighty highway. And we would rather spend fifteen minutes in a drive-through queue than waddle into the coffee shop.
India should consider carefully the desire to bring cars to the masses. They have their place, to be sure, but the India of 2027 may be unrecognizable to the Indians of 2007. Perhaps a robust transit program with reasonable hourly fees for fleet vehicles when a trip to the Indian BJ’s is in order, much like Zipcar here in the States.
I am not a starry-eyed indealistic hippie – I do traffic impact studies for a living. And what I see I often do not like.
If Friedman is wrong, it does more good to punch holes in his logic than to dismiss him as some sort of jerk, or ivory tower dweller
OK here goes.
3rd paragraph of this wackjobs article says that the energy implicatons of India and China leading US lifestyles will be enormous for the world. Well, no sh!t Sherlock. Brilliant deduction. Maybe he can tell me the sky is blue next.
5th paragraph talks about the troubles of having a single scooter for large Indian families, while observing the benefits Tata motors can make for the average Indian family and Indian industry. He proceeds to contradict that assement of good in his 6th & 7th paragraph by observing a single gridlocked overpass in Hyperdad (yes I know that’s not it’s name). Apparently, one badly designed intersection is enough to idict the concept of private automobile ownership for the masses of India in his view.
8th paragraph than proceeds to make an apples to oranges comparison of cell phones to automobile ownership. India didn’t forgo landline phones because of some enlightened patience. India didn’t have money to build landline phones, or have the banking and legal infrastructure in place to ensure timely payment from the masses for services rendered. At least with cell phones, people must prepay their miuntes and the phone companies are ensured payment, but I’m getting tangential.
Later in his article he says, “Charge high prices for parking, charge a proper road tax for driving, deploy free air-conditioned buses that reach every corner of the city, expand the existing beautiful Delhi subway system, “and then let the market work,”… I love the ivory tower approach here. Let’s deploy free air-conditioned buses everywhere. there won’t be any costs, monetary or environmental, to this. The masses will all happily co-exist, without ever dirtying, destroying, or some other way fouling this perfect transit system. I dare anyone anywhere to claim a subway system is beautiful. While I have yet to experience an overseas subway system, my experience with NYC, Philly SEPTA, Philly PATCO, Washington DC Metro, Boston’s T, Chicago’s CTA, & Seattle’s Metro lead to an empirically derived conclusion that subway systems and mass transit in general all fall into unsafe, unclean conditions with minimal usage. The ivory tower types can enjoy slumming it up with crackheads on the subway pestering/intimidating/assaulting people for money on the subway, I just want to get from point A to point B.
Finally, he concludes that India’s apparent duty to the world is to give us cheap answers to large problems. The shear smuggery implicit in this man’s editorial is enough to make me discount anything he says. Apparently India, and by extension any car loving Western nation, could not possibly use technology to solve the environmental costs of car ownership. Hybrids, electric vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, none of this is mentioned as possible solutions. Only the glorious gift of mass transit bequesthed upon us ignoble masses by the always correct and perfect government.
So yeah, I’m taking personal offense by this fallacy of mass transit. It works for Manhattan, Center city Philadelphia, and Crystal City Virgina (DC). And as far as I can tell no where else (at least in America).
The ivory tower types love to talk about $20 gas, assuming all other factors stay constant. They ignore the probablity that some smart guy who wants to make some money will create a usable hydrogen or electric vehicle powered by CO2-less nuclear/wind/solar/tidal power that’s affordable. I won’t go into the communist/socialist inklings I get from these types, but the fact remains that there are technological solutions to the problems (and I do admit their are environmental problems) of car ownership. I just think that these have not been implemented yet because the free market has determined the opportunity costs of these solutions are still too high versus the overall economic and societal benefit widespread car ownership confers to the West.
Let me see if I understand Robert’s position.
- Don’t tax drivers to pay for mass transit. Instead, tax everyone to pay for roadways, bridges, and tunnels. Remove arable land to build roadways and businesses outside of the urban areas. Use precious public water resources to support this non-centralized infrastructure.
- Don’t tax drivers to curb pollution. Make everyone else pay with loss of arable land, air and water pollution, increased health problems and loss of forest areas and animal habitat.
- Don’t invest in lower cost rail systems to move merchandise, instead make everyone pay higher and higher prices, as the price of fuel increases, and locally grown food becomes scarce due to suburbanization and road construction.
As we are seeing right in America right now, the American paradigm Robert describes is simply unsustainable.
Of course, Friedman is presuming that cars = commuting. Given gridlock, perhaps Indians will buy the new, cheaper car for something other than slogging back and forth to employment: commerce, shopping, trips to distant relatives, etc.
Maybe they’ll buy them to live in.
One rule of thumb that I employ when reviewing these sorts of discussions: Those who rely heavily on banging the “socialism” and “Commie” drum to formulate a rebuttal have generally lost before they’ve started. It’s basically a way of saying, “I don’t need to come up with a reasonable response ‘cuz you’re a Red. By the way, I have this list of 57 Communists…”
You don’t need to carry the Little Red Book with you or weep at the thought of Stalinism to realize that gridlock is costly, roads are expensive and consume a lot of real estate, and that smog kinda sucks.
A few factoids for you:
-India’s population is over 1 billion people.
-India imports about 75% of its energy.
-Its population density is ten times that of the US.
-As of 2002, India had about 17 million privately-owned vehicles.
If India had a vehicle ownership rate similar to the US, it would have perhaps 800 million cars. Does anyone think that the infrastructure there could handle 800 million cars when their present network can’t handle even a fraction of that figure today?
And where exactly is the fuel needed to run those vehicles supposed to come from? Perhaps you’ll be driving one of those nuclear-powered aerial cars that we were supposed to have by 1970, but I suspect that my car and a lot of others are going to be running on some combination of oil and batteries for some time to come.
Been a long time reader of this site and many times I’ve almost left a comment, but after reading this article I just had to. Your article, due to its brilliance Mr. Farago, should be obligatory reading to all of our third world imbecile leaders (including my own)! You’ve hit any number of nails squarely on the head. Unfortunately most of them, specially in Southern Latin America, are Euro-centric snobs who don’t realize that one of our countries’ greatest strenghts are our open spaces, with relatively few people. Yet they think like they’re in Europe where space comes at a premium!
In my country, due to some recent growth, unprecendented numbers of people are having access to their first cars. In fact due to easy credit we’re having a record breaking year in car sales and profits (more than 15% in sales and more than 2 million cars in a year, the first time in history). And now, when we’ve gained this, some pols come along saying cars are polluting and the air in unbreatheable, and traffic is at a standstill. Wrong! What they don’t want to do is invest in infrastucture and spend our tax money on ungodly personal schemes. (Sigh!)
What third world copuntries need is to circulate and generate more money for everyone.
Thanks for listening!
This Friedman piece (and almost every article about non-Western transportation and energy use) smacks of paternalism; could there be a more clear case of “do as I say, not as I do?” Nations deserve the right to handle their own affairs.
Setting aside the notion that Indian leaders are too ignorant to effectively lead their nation without the guidance of Western commentators, let’s take a few of the arguments that have been brought up:
-”Roads are already gorged with the brown, sweaty masses, and it will only get worse with more cars!” Yes, and only we brilliant Westerners have the brainpower to notice? I’m pretty sure Delhi residents can tell the difference between moving and sitting still, and will make their own urban planning and transit choices accordingly. Then again, who knows? They didn’t enjoy the benefits of America’s fine public school system, so maybe they can’t tell the difference between moving and sitting still.
-”Think about what would happen to energy prices and energy infrastructure if two thousand gazillion yellow people owned cars!” It has been a while, but I seem to remember something in freshman economics that says that somewhere along the way from today to two thousand gazillion cars on the road, oil demand would drive prices to a level that would discourage car ownership. What do they call that again? Surprise and da man? I can’t remember. But I understand the Western concern – the equilibrium price might just be higher than 50 cents a barrel, so it will cost us more than $5 to fill up our 2mpg Ford Excess every week. Just a thought. But I’m no economist, so I could be wrong.
-”The savages’ choices don’t just affect them; they are ruining our environment!” Absolutely! We lucky Westerners got to burn all the fuel we wanted over the centuries to get where we are, and now that we’re here, don’t we deserve to enjoy the fruits of our labors without having to suffer the side effects of the rest of the world catching up? Why can’t they just be happy with their lot? I’m perfectly happy with mine; fair is fair. Oh, fine, if they insist on earning more than $1 per day per capita (honestly, do they really need even that much?) can’t they just figure out some other way to do it? I mean, besides the way we did it. So what if we are the ones who put the environment in the state it is in! Tough luck for them – if God wanted them to be able to afford one Big Mac every other month, he would have made sure they were born in America.
It’s not a question of the “state we put the environment in”. Yes, we created some enormous problems. And, yes, it certainly seems arrogant to suggest that rapidly-developing nations like India consider the risk of uncontrolled growth in the number of cars. But the fact is that China and India are set to consume the lion’s share of oil within the next decade.
I think the real reason for the hyperbolic response to Friedman’s suggestions is that in it we see the inevitable end of the era of endless sprawl and cheap gas. I suggest that if one equates cheap gas with freedom, they aren’t thinking straight.
Robert,
I’m really happy that you brought up this issue.
Being of Indian descent and growing up in New York, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on this article. I believe that cheap vehicles are going to benefit India in the long run. While the country does not have the infastructure to handle increased transportation at the moment, such offerings will force the government to start paying more attention to this issue. Let us keep in mind that this is a country whose government has to be dragged kicking and screaming by private industry into economic growth. Taxing vehicles simply will not result in a better public transportation system if the government is left to it. If nothing else, congestion will lead private industry to create a better rail system to create profits and increase efficiency (similar to how Rockerfeller and Vanderbuilt did here). Even then, there is not way to ensure that such a system of public transport will be useful enough to work. Outside of NYC, Washington D.C., and a few other major cities, it is difficult to find a public transport system that is more efficient than private transportation. Hell, if Boston can’t even get it right, how do you expect India to? The idea put forth in the article could be applied much more effectively in China, where the government is the major force behind economic growth.
As a side note, perhaps Mr. Friedman should picking on those individuals who feel the need to Hummers in NYC. Not only is it environmentally unfriendly, it is also completely inefficient. Until the U.S. has a gas tax and all major cities (not just manhattan) decide it is time to adopt a london-style levy on vehicles, perhaps the pot should stop criticizing the methods of the the kettle. The reason we don’t have these measures is the same reason India will not; democratic leaders hate upsetting constituents.
“One of America’s biggest problems is that we have crafted a lifestyle (sprawl) that absolutely requires car ownership.”
How do you square that argument with the fact that the US today has a population more concentrated in it’s cities than ever before? Rural America has been emptying out for many, many decades while a handful of large cities continue to grow. At the same time we keep hearing about the horrors of sprawl. The fact is that the US today has more land mass covered in hardwood forest than it did 50 years ago. US farms continue to feed the nation and export around the world as well as now also being pressed into service for corn ethanol for fuel. While some sunbelt cities are growing like gangbusters, other cities in the rustbelt are shrinking. Cleveland, OH and many others like it are actually getting smaller:
http://blog.cleveland.com/plaindealer/2007/08/our_shrinking_city.html
All the furor about sprawl is at best narrow minded and one-sided. Oddly enough, college educated “liberal-minded” urban planners and their central committees are a big part of the reason why the newer cities are so spread out. The greater San Jose, CA area would have a whole lot more moderate density condo complexes next to office buildings if the planners would let it happen, but modern planning doctrine forces separate zones for residential, commercial, industrial and retail uses. It is this planned forcing apart of the functions of life which causes much of a growing city’s traffic problem. That and the fact that in places like Silicon Valley the government encourages job growth while artificially restricting housing growth.
@jthorner
“One of America’s biggest problems is that we have crafted a lifestyle (sprawl) that absolutely requires car ownership.”
How do you square that argument with the fact that the US today has a population more concentrated in it’s cities than ever before?
Sprawl is an urban phenomenon. Most Americans have major commutes to and from work, as well as to where they shop and/or entertain themselves.
Which means that this has nothing to do with rural/urban – this is an urbia/suburbia problem, suburbs to “burb.”
carlos.negros
As we are seeing right in America right now, the American paradigm Robert describes is simply unsustainable.
Huh? What do you mean by “unsustainable” and what evidence do you have to support the contention that America’s traffic patterns are unsustainable?
Robert Farago:
“What do you mean by “unsustainable” and what evidence do you have to support the contention that America’s traffic patterns are unsustainable”
Traffic patterns are one aspect, but you also argued for suburban development.
It is our reliance on heavy energy consumption, trucking, enormous investments in roads, highways, and bridges, and the inefficiances of having to transport food, especially, thousands of miles before consumers can buy it. Additionally, suburban expansion has lead to larger houses, which require more energy to heat and cool. This has also devastated contigious habitat, which is not at all the same as how much “hardwood” we have.
As gas prices rise to over $100 per barrel, with no end in sight, the vast majority of Americans are using their money to pay for increased energy and food costs. Retail sales are suffering, and a recession is either here or at hand – with no clear way out. Soon there will be huge layoffs, which will lead to more bankrupsies, foreclosures, and will increase the credit crisis. This is all due to the thinking error inherent in the bigger, faster, more consumer philosophy.
These are the facts and this is why international capital is running away from the U.S. and from the dollar. We are energy hogs. We are living in debt. Our economy is on the verge of recession or worse. There is no clear way out. And it is mostly due to the way we have chosen to live since the end of WWII, especially the decisions to use tax money to fund road instead of public transportation.
So, beyond traffic patterns, the whole assumption that an economy is more efficient when people are spread out then when they are concentrated, is dependent on cheap energy. The petroleum age is coming to an end. It is true that we may be able to find a technological way out of this mess; the elusive battery, or some other breakthrough. But we have been wasting time. The Atomic bomb wasn’t developed by the private sector. We need leadership.
carlos.negros :
I wish I shared your pessimism.
But the fact is that China and India are set to consume the lion’s share of oil within the next decade.
And? So what? This line of reasoning betrays the fact that this entire discussion is about the West’s desire for cheap oil.
The hypocrisy here is just aged to perfection – simply magnifique! We tell Asia to open its markets so we can sell them things, but when the free market might just mean permanently higher oil prices… well, the free market must not be working if we have to pay more for something!
The hypocrisy here is just aged to perfection
The US has a policy that you would consider to be blatantly hypocritical in respect to nuclear weapons. It has decided that it can and should have nuclear weapons, but that you, I, Osama bin Laden and a whole host of nations and would-be terrorists should not. While the United States has an entire arsenal of nukes, it certainly doesn’t want either North Korea or you to have them.
In other words, hypocrisy is not the issue; practical consideration for outcomes is. The United States and other western nations lead a consumptive lifestyle that is sustainable only if a few of us are allowed to indulge in it. This level of resource gluttony cannot be supported if all 6+ billion of us get in on it.
The problem at the moment is that China and India alone comprise one-third of the world’s population. Not only does that potentially add a couple of billion consumers vying for resources that have been largely the dominion of a minority of the world’s population, but they also happen to be large enough to amass militaries to fight for them if they so choose.
Does anybody in the United States honestly want to go up against a well-armed China or India in a contest for resources? We have enough trouble fighting off some ragtag insurgents in Iraq, so I am not optimistic about our odds against a couple of potential megapowers that could be ready and eager to compete for resources in the next 20-30 years. That’s a fool’s game, and I’d prefer not to have to play it.
I would imagine that soaring gasoline prices alone, without any self-gratulatory hand-wringing, will do enough to eliminate gridlock, reduce pollution, and reduce funds available to build new highway.
I have already noticed a dramatic reduction around here in traffic congestion (which never even achieved the status of gridlock). And in a city not far from here, the gridlock has been largely eliminated. It is actually pleasant to drive there, instead of a source of extreme frustration.
I wonder how quickly the Friedmans of the world will notice these changes which will inevitably become too apparent to ignore, the higher gasoline prices get.
Pch101
Does anybody in the United States honestly want to go up against a well-armed China or India in a contest for resources? We have enough trouble fighting off some ragtag insurgents in Iraq, so I am not optimistic about our odds against a couple of potential megapowers that could be ready and eager to compete for resources in the next 20-30 years. That’s a fool’s game, and I’d prefer not to have to play it.
To avoid turning a conversation about cars, into a prolonged debate about military strategy I’ll just say..direct warfare against a uniformed army of a sovereign nation is ENTIRELY different than warfare against individual criminals that shamelessly hide among the civilian populace. The United States military, even in it’s current state is more than capable of confronting the Chinese or Indian Armed Forces. In a few decades (even by China’s estimate) that may change..but for now…
I argee with most of the rest of your opinion though…
The more urban congestion, the more business and people move away to outlying areas, where prices are cheaper and transportation more efficient. If it works for Atlanta, Houston, LA, London, Paris and Moscow, why wouldn’t– doesn’t it work in India?
To be honest, I thought this was sarcasm at first. The problem is that prices are not necessarily cheaper in outlying areas, at least not in the LA area. Especially when you factor in the required cost of having a car since there are no public alternatives whatsoever.
As for this idea “working” in those cities, well my 12 mile commute along the 405 in LA can take 1.5 hours in the afternoon. If that’s your idea of “working” then I’d hate to see what “not working” would be.
Larry P2: what part of the world are you in? I have not noticed any relief of congestion in the Boston area.
Jthorner:
“One of America’s biggest problems is that we have crafted a lifestyle (sprawl) that absolutely requires car ownership.”
How do you square that argument with the fact that the US today has a population more concentrated in it’s cities than ever before? Rural America has been emptying out for many, many decades while a handful of large cities continue to grow.
Simple. Today’s cities are growing in a far less concentrated way then they grew in the 19th century. They are sprawling. If they were growing with the density of Manhattan, Paris, or London, public transportation probably would be practical. But in most metro areas the suburbs are becoming ever less dense.
“practical consideration for outcomes is” the issue.
Nice work Pch101, I think Mr. Friedman’s point of view has been ably defended in the comments section. I am not certain why there is so much chafing over the identification of a worsening problem, and the positing of some potential moderators. Friedman is simply employing the long understood maxim: private vices must be balanced (in this case taxed) to create public virtue.
The final paragraph, and ultimate message of the editorial seems obvious rather than controversial or paternalistic. A century ago, America was brimming with resources and open spaces. Circumstances could not be more different in 21st century India.
Friedman’s argument:
“If India just innovates in cheap cars alone, its future will be gridlocked and polluted. But an India that makes itself the leader in both cheap cars and clean mass mobility is an India that will be healthier and wealthier. It will also be an India that gives us cheap answers to big problems — rather than cheap copies of our worst habits.”
happy diwali, y’all
It is truly amazing how many Americans believe they have a birthright to a certain lifestyle to the exclusion over almost everyone else on the planet. The only person more ridiculous than Friedman is John Travolta, a man who flies himself around the world, in his private 707, to lecture people about conserving fuel.
To say that mass transit is not doable in the USA is to be ignorant of history. Prior to our postwar suburb boom, America was a nation of cities and towns connected by rail. It’s only after the end of WWII that America became one giant x-burb connected by strip malls.
I, for one, won’t be sad to see the McMansions and strip malls tuned into ghost-burbs.
Now I get it. You folks want the elimination of the individual.
By getting rid of the automobiles, you force us to use mass transit, dependent upon the services of others instead of ourselves.
By getting rid of our suburban neighborhoods, you force us to live in congested apartments.
By stripping away our mobility, by forcing us to become dependent on public services, it puts us one step closer to become proles.
Controlled like sheep, hidden in the idea that we’re saving the world.
“Private vices must be balanced (in this case taxed) to create public virtue.”
This sound to me suspiciously like John Galbraiths private afluence -public squalor arguement. which, like a moron or a keynesian economist(maybe I repeat myself), he suggested taxing the private wealth to reduce the public squalor; you can guess how well that works.
The major problem is that the state plans mass transit and like any central planning board, it has its own special interests. The only way forward is get the state out of tranportation and transport suppliers and users will figure it out.
any state always spends more because once it is put up it becomes a cost center which either spends vast sums to keep it pristine ie parks or very little because it it doesn’t attract votes or election funds. Private suppliers see assets as providing a revenue stream.
anyway the NYT will be dead in its current form in a couple of years. Maybe Tom should figure out how to fix that.
Now I get it. You folks want the elimination of the individual.
Well, you caught me there. I’m a pinko commie whose goal is to enslave all of my comrades. I’m conspiring with the ethanol producers and bus companies to create a slave state that will banish all individual thought, and replace your names with social security numbers that will be tattooed across your foreheads….
OK, time for a reality check. No, some of us are just pointing out that there may well be limits on what mankind is going to be able to get away with, and that there is a possibility that we are setting ourselves up for a big fall if we don’t anticipate the possible ramifications.
Take a look at some of the theories as to what may have happened to destroy the society that once lived on Easter Island. (It is believed by some researchers that the local population destroyed its local ecosystem, used up what was left until it was gone, and then killed themselves off with warfare, disease and starvation as they battled for the scraps.) Then decide whether that’s what you want for us.
quasimondo : Now I get it. You folks want the elimination of the individual.
By getting rid of the automobiles, you force us to use mass transit, dependent upon the services of others instead of ourselves.
By getting rid of our suburban neighborhoods, you force us to live in congested apartments.
By stripping away our mobility, by forcing us to become dependent on public services, it puts us one step closer to become proles.
Controlled like sheep, hidden in the idea that we’re saving the world.
No, Quasi, you don’t get it. I don’t think anyone wants the “elimination” of the individual. However, some degree of concern for the “common good” of ALL of the individuals would be a refreshing change.
By not having the option of using mass transit, people like you, Quasi, force us to use automobiles, dependent upon the services of others (auto manufacturers; mechanics; road construction companies; city, county and state road maintenance crews; oil companies; corrupt dictatorships running the countries that own oil reserves and that squeeze our country by our collective balls.)
By not having the option of living in city apartments, you force us to live in isolated suburban neighborhoods.
High gasoline prices and continued auto dependency are already stripping away our mobility, and our auto dependency also forces us to become dependent on public services (the government agencies that regulate the manufacture and safety of automobiles, the importation and refining of petroleum produects, the building and maintenance of our highway systems.)
Controlled like sheep, hidden in the idea that we’re free.
RF you say “environmental concerns must be always be balanced against economic prosperity” but many would argue that given even the least worst climate change models, environmental concerns = economic prosperity, or on the other side of the coin, “no concern for the environment = economic doom”. I am not defending Friedman’s piece or thinking, I’m not a fan. But what I would love at some point on TTAC is your (RF’s) position on exactly what the transport industries should do to address/react to the paradigm shift that, in a lot of people’s view (and mine), has already begun. It is fair enough (and entertaining) to snark on the bogosity of Toyota’s greenwashing and hybrid Escalades. But, please, someone, tell me, tell them, what the hell should THEY(car OEMs, governments) and US (car buyers) be doing in this here 21st century to deal with the petro/carbon endgame.
Wasn’t Dean Kamen supposed to have Segways in the hands of all these people by now?
Since we let them develop nuclear technoligy virtually unchecked and they also make a slew of tiny crappy eletric cars for export already, it would seem to me they already have the solution in hand.