American cities (at least The Motor-Capital of the world - Detroit, Michigan) have virtually non-existent public transportation infrastructure. Came across an interesting article over the web.
The author says that GM, Ford and Chrysler (The Big 3 in the motor-city) made such rapid progress in automobile sales during the 1970s that public transportation went out of taste for the masses!
"Under the impetus of capitalism, several gigantic corporations came to dominate ground transport in the U.S. during the Twentieth Century. Through sustained efforts of a shared monopoly (or oligopoly) led by General Motors, the automobile-- together with a complex culture supporting it-- was foisted upon the American people, for the sake of private accumulation of capital. As a result, the country is mired in unnecessary car-caused environmental, energy, and social problems."
Now, as someone from a country where public transportation is the primary (and for many -the only) mode of transport, this sounds crazy to me. Back in India, I cannot ever recall facing the problem of some city not being accessible, just because there was no bus or train service to that place. Well, even the smallest and remotest of towns are neatly connected to bigger cities via reliable public transport. But here, many a times, I've felt handicapped, and can’t go to work after morning 8, just because of the lack of transport!
So, why should we not have a solid public transport system in all cities complementing the privately owned hummers!?
Stats: According to the Census bureau, there were 129mi passenger cars plying on American roads versus 696K buses !!!!
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