🚀 go-pugleaf

Mr. Potter wrote:

>Mr. Potter lives in a real city, so he uses mass transit, walks, and takes
>taxis.

As a rule, real people live in the suburbs.

(I couldn't resist, even though my best friend in DC metro is a hard-core
urbanophile and a Northeastern ultra-provincial, and a Nader voter as
well.)

>
>As a matter of fact, Mr. Potter thinks that gas prices should eventually rise to
>about $3.00 per gallon.  That way, people can ride mass transit in REAL cities
>-- and drop high - megaton nuclear BOMBS on Urban Abominations such as ATL, PHX,
>DFW, CLT, and the like....

I'm afraid 1940 (peak of the big-city era) is long done and suburbia-bashing is
passe.

If it hits $3.00 a gallon, people will pay it and make cuts elsewhere.  And they
won't
move north and east back into Gritty Cities.  (DC metro is booming, but it's
Sunbelt-style
growth that accounts for most of it, rather than the rehabilitation of the
District itself,

>Heh.  It's a laff riot to see you hillbillies in ATL PANIC when you get a few
>microns of snow on the ground -- you have to close down the whole steenkin'
>place, and your drivers look like the stars of Bumper Cars On Ice....

For your information, I left Atlanta, lived in DC metro for a while, and now
have
followed my "living tourist" interests (and $$$) to St. Louis here in the
Midwest.
(M-I-D-W-E-S-T, Mr. Potter.  St. Louis is in the Midwest, not in the South. When
I
went from DC metro to STL metro I simply moved from a Northeastern border
town to a Midwestern border town.)

>NOT in the realm of possibility.

The general trend is "south for better climate, west for better culture."

I could resist.

If it helps salve the pain, I'm doubtful I'll head to California if I choose to
go back
to the West Coast eventually, where I grew up.

>Sure I'll use it -- remember the phrase 'We will BURY you"?

I'm afraid the best you'll probably be able to hope for is that
retiree-population
problems drag the Sunbelt down.  There are too many old-fashioned urban liberal
dinosaurs in the Snowbelt to keep you from getting rich selling the Sunbelt all
the
water it needs and all the electricity to power all those air conditioners.


Dave Simpson