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What you have shown is that the cost of education is rising and that pupils of public schools fare poorly in academics

Fortunately for the US, we don't have many government-provided services. What I have shown is those few services the government does provide around here, have demonstrated an explosive cost-growth without any quality-improvement to justify it. Indeed, some would say, the quality has gone down.

Then I guess you have more of a corruption problem than one with municipal services, because it does work in Europe pretty well. Maybe you need to get rid of pork barrel filling politicians that are in the pockets of certain corporations?

Infrastructure-maintenance is deteriorating too — for a particularly striking example, consider the recent repainting of Brooklyn Bridge — which cost more than building the structure did originally.

Unfortunately I cannot read the article about the Brooklyn Bridge, but it would be interesting to find out why painting it is so expensive. You know, there's generally a reason for something, so what could it be? Maybe safety regulations that actually require gear where the workers would actually be more likely to survive working on it? I honestly don't know, and you didn't provide a reason so all I can do is speculate.

When you managed to convince me

Given that, 11 years ago, when Municipal WiFi has become an obvious disaster, you personally continued to defend it — much to the acclaim of your fellow Statists — I do not expect you to ever be convinced. "Municipal Fiber" is just another go at that same harebrained idea and, of course, you are going to defend it after it flops too...

You really went back 10 years of my posts? Are you stalking me? There are days where I actually reach the limit of postings I'm allowed to make, please don't tell me you read them all.

I can't help but feel a tiny bit flattered ... in a weird, creeped-out way...

But back to the point. You might have noticed that some time has passed in the meantime. The amount of people who use the internet went up. The internet is no longer a playground for early adopters and tech geeks, old grannies and very tech-illiterate people now spend many hours every day on it, mostly using social media platforms or communication and discussion tools. Anyone under 25 pretty much can't even live anymore without it. The "digital natives" are growing up and they have come of (voting) age in the meantime. This isn't 2007 anymore where the "I cannot live without it" people are under the voting age and can't affect jack shit, the internet has pretty much become what TV used to be: The must-have convenience toy in our life.

You think people would have voted for municipal cable access 20 years ago? I am pretty sure they would have.

What you have shown is that the cost of education is rising and that pupils of public schools fare poorly in academics

Fortunately for the US, we don't have many government-provided services. What I have shown is those few services the government does provide around here, have demonstrated an explosive cost-growth without any quality-improvement to justify it. Indeed, some would say, the quality has gone down.

Infrastructure-maintenance is deteriorating too — for a particularly striking example, consider the recent repainting of Brooklyn Bridge — which cost more than building the structure did originally.

When you managed to convince me

Given that, 11 years ago, when Municipal WiFi has become an obvious disaster, you personally continued to defend it — much to the acclaim of your fellow Statists — I do not expect you to ever be convinced. "Municipal Fiber" is just another go at that same harebrained idea and, of course, you are going to defend it after it flops too...

Story about Chicago's increased shootings because of global warming.

I'm sure you were attempting to make the most ridiculous joke you could, but they actually already have made that claim for the last 6 years.

Yea, if you're flying domestically, you shouldn't allow anyone to search your laptop. Period.

Bzzzzttt! Wrong! 2/3 of U.S. population live in the Border Zone. I agree that you shouldn't let them search your laptop, but they'll do it anyways. Your full disk encryption is the full-proof way of keeping your information private. And losing your ticket money is sad, but true. I'd like that to go to the courts for a decision.

No dipshit, it's the realization that EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO VOTE should get to, and stupid fucking idiots like you can't tell them they can't. https://www.citylab.com/equity...

they have the freedom to choose.

Not really.

That's interesting because the conservative mentality is to make everyone dependent on Big Oil and subsidized roads, and to take away the right of business owners to decide how much parking to provide for their customers. And thanks to zoning laws, it's no longer practical for many people to go to the store for a gallon of milk without carrying some form of government ID with you. Is that freedom?

I think true freedom is when you can walk and bike everywhere you need to be.

In my area, pedestrians walk on the sidewalk, not in the road. And once drivers pay 100% of the cost of the roads instead of less than half like they do today, then we can think about how to charge bicyclists. Perhaps through a tire tax?

Let the free market decide

The free market cannot provide decisions in a heavily subsidized market. Automobile travel is heavily subsidized; thus rail travel is competing with another transportation provider, private autos, that receives a near 50% subsidy.

This article presents an unusually low estimate of the subsidies that autos receive:

Over the last 40 years, gas taxes, tolls, and registration fees have covered only about 60 or 70 percent of roadway expenditures across all levels of U.S. government. The remainder has been paid using property, income, and other taxes not related to transportation. These subsidies for driving reduce its cost and increase driving demand in the United States.

from here: https://www.citylab.com/transp...

This article is much more in line with other articles:

A new report from the Tax Foundation shows 50.7 percent of America’s road spending comes from gas taxes, tolls, and other fees levied on drivers. The other 49.3 percent? Well, that comes from general tax dollars, just like education and health care. The way we spend on roads has nothing to do with the free market, or even how much people use roads.

“Nationwide in 2010, state and local governments raised $37 billion in motor fuel taxes and $12 billion in tolls and non-fuel taxes, but spent $155 billion on highways,” writes the Tax Foundation’s Joseph Henchman. Another $28 billion of that $155 billion comes from revenue from the federal gas tax.

from here: https://usa.streetsblog.org/20...

Most other studies seem to hover around that 50% mark. The point being that "let the free market decide" is a nice quip; but it does not work in markets that do not rely on the free market; but instead rely on heavy subsidies.

I thought Singapore was supposed to have them first, but I don't know the latest status.

And even if the electricity supply is mostly coal, a large coal-fired plant is much, much cleaner than any car's internal combustion engine.

I don't think that's true.

https://www.citylab.com/enviro...

This page says US cities are losing ten times less -- 4 million trees a year.

Both environmentalists and Paul Ryan's pro-Chinese corporate shills are missing the point. This isn't about the total amount of Lake Michigan water used or even the significant percentage of treated water used. As the article points out, Paul Ryan's pet project sets a precedent of diverting water out of the Great Lakes basin. Only a few kilometers and a few meters of elevation divide the Great Lakes water from the Mississippi river system. Where the plant is located, wastewater would flow away from the Great Lakes but they applied for permits a few miles away n Racine on the Lake Michigan shore.

To put things into perspective, the city of Racine (pop 77,571) consumes 16.9 million gallons per day. So this plant would increase the city's consumption of treated water by 41%. But under the Great Lakes Compact (2008) nearly all of Racine's water and water from other cities bordering the Great Lakes must return to the Great Lakes. With this, 40% of Racine's consumption would diverted outside the Great Lake's basin. This sets a precedent so that Milwaukee, Chicago, Toronto, Detroit, Gary and other large cities with reason to sell or divert Great Lakes water can point to Racine and say, "They did it, so why not us?"

Hand-waving arguments about man's insignificant effect on the Great Lakes system fall flat. As one who grew up in Racine I've watched Lake Michigan's eco-system change several times with algae, lamprey eels, alewives, lake perch, salmon trout, zebra-mussels and the Asian Carp (coming soon). The latest threats come from a 100-year old project to divert Great Lakes water to prevent Typhoid fever in Chicago. The damage and/or cleanup from this may cost billions.

The administration and politicians owned by Foxconn have lost all credibility when it comes to the use of scientific principles to assess the wide-ranging and long-term economic, social and ecological effects of short-term business misadventures such as the Foxconn con job.

> The same guy that isn't rounding up people

Er: https://www.citylab.com/equity...

> The same guy who isn't telling the police to shoot people, but is more then happy to attack them publicly win or lose.

Or roundly praise and encourage police brutality: http://www.chicagotribune.com/...

> The same guy who places blame on both groups, but also says both groups have good people in them.

Whilst one of those groups are literal neo-Nazis that killed people, and others are counter-protesters against that. I'm not sure how supporting murderous neo-Nazis is a plus in your argument as that's certainly a little bit Hitlerish.

> He's put people into place who are ardent believers that the constitution isn't a "living breathing document" but foundational to the point that it's sacrosanct and all law should be build around

As long as it fits their hard-right interpretation of the constitution rather than a fair, objective interpretation, and he stacked the courts to make sure it stays that way. The problem with the constitution isn't that it's black and white between those who back it and those that don't, it's that it's way too ambiguous in many areas, and it's a question of whose interpretation is right. The fact you think there's a single correct interpretation and that those who back it can be the only true defenders of the constitution doesn't make you right, it just makes you a hard line uncompromising wing nut.

> Trust in media is declining worldwide and he isn't the cause of it, the media itself is.

Nope. The media isn't remotely responsible for Russian disinformation campaigns, nor is it responsible for the populism that rallies people against them with lies, from people like Trump, Le Penn, and Farage. That's firmly on the populists and the propagandists - the media would love to be able to continue reporting facts without being attacked for it, but each time they do and it's related to Trump he sows distrust by claiming they're lying, simply for publishing the facts. That's the very essence of populism, and yes, it's also exactly Hitler's modus operandi.

Thankfully however, you're largely wrong, and most people haven't fallen for it. Trust for traditional media has actually risen overall, "increased distrust in the media" is almost entirely based off the back of distrust in social media, precisely because of the expose of the disinformation campaigns being run off the back of social media. Whilst trust in traditional media saw a dip during the running of fake news propaganda campaigns that were run in support of the Trump camp, the aftermath of that has led to a bounce in support for traditional media, and a plummet in the trust of social media. Here's the UK picture for example:

https://www.campaignlive.co.uk...

Effectively what we're seeing is pushback from attempts to turn public trust against the media - whilst it worked for folks like Trump and the Brexit crowd at first, when people realised they were being lied to in populist campaigns, they railed against it and returned to supporting the traditional media because they know it's more trustworthy than the networks on which the populist disinformation campaigns were run.

Sure he's not created concentration camps, or invaded his neighbours, that's not all Hitler relied upon, and Trump most definitely has used a large number of Hitler's tactics. In fact, here's a bunch of people allied with Trump and his political ideology admitting exactly that:

https://www.indepe

No, jay walking was invented by car companies and entrenched through a massive advertising campaign. It's not the as simple as you think it is.

That really depends on how roads and public transit are funded. Roads are generally funded through taxes on fuel, so public transit-using urbanites aren't contributing much to that (but car-using urbanites are, of course). Public transit funding varies, but may be through general tax revenue, which means everybody contributes.

That might have been the case in the 60's but even then it only covered about 70% of the cost.
https://frontiergroup.org/repo...

Things have changed a lot since then:
https://www.citylab.com/transp...

We all pay for things we don't use in our taxes. It's like insurance. Hope and pray you don't have to use it, but the pennies you pay for it are worth it when you need it. The fire department is the best example, but they are all equally important.

Every Uber ride carrying a passenger is a car drive not taken by that passenger. Because rideshare drivers do not have to loiter or deadhead like cabdrivers, there is no net contribution to traffic.

False.

So you're saying that in Chicago it is a common design feature of building roofs to channel falling ice and snow onto pedestrian walkways?

This is a common issue

Yeah, reading up on it you are still full of shit. "Usually" doesn't apply here. Modern buildings dominate the list.

You act like race riots and political riots don't happen. Or that domestic terrorism doesn't exist.

As far as immigration goes, Miami has a larger percentage of immigrants than San Jose and note that Los Angeles is not very far behind San Jose. And the violent crime rates of Miami and Los Angeles dwarf that of San Jose. San Jose kind of bucks the trends - I think having billions and billions of dollars in "sillycon valley" makes that happen?

Or perhaps it's not the fact they're immigrant, but whether or not those immigrants are here legally? After all, illegal immigrants are about 3.4% of the population but they overwhelmingly commit most of the violent and drug crime in the US.

Or perhaps it has to do with the race of those immigrants? You do realize that 61.4% of all immigrants in San Jose are from Asia, and Asians have some of the lowest crime rates. So maybe the fact your immigrant neighbors are here legally, making big money, and from ethnic backgrounds that for whatever reason have a much lower crime rate, you're in a unique spot and cannot being to extrapolate your experience to nationwide - because it is so different than most of the rest of the US?

They closed the entire DMV for several years in order to prevent people from acquiring an ID?

No, they focused heavily on the offices that minorities could conveniently use, which was kinda revealing.

The freaking blog you pointed to is a lie,

Identify one falsehood in it. Go ahead.

there are a lot of other things going on into making those decisions, you can get an ID at the post office, from the DMV through the mail or online.

Yes, racists are practiced at finding excuses for their behavior, literacy tests and poll taxes were usually defended under those same terms. Including you know, misinforming the public about the situation.

But hey, if you want the state to mail out ID to everybody, go ahead and propose it.

You need an ID to buy booze, medicine and cigarettes, you're saying no black person buys booze, medicine or cigarettes?

Actually, I've found that sales clerks will rarely bother me about booze or cigarettes even if they are supposed to get ID, but I understand some people do have complaints about that process, medicine is somewhat different, but then, there are problems with pharmacists denying people's prescriptions. And don't even get my mother started on the way they hassled her about her diabetic testing strips refill, then tried to bill her after they FAILED to give her the number of strips she needed the first time when she asked for more. She gets quite irate at them.

If you close 31 DMV offices you do not "save only $100,000" ... argh, there is just so much wrong with this that it's not even worth pointing out. If it isn't obvious that this is partisan bullshit grasping at straws to make a point then you're dumber than you realize..

Sure man, you come right after an accusation that relied on false counter cries of racism and bigotry to ignore actual racism and bigotry, and you think it's other people who are full of partisan bullshit.

Sorry man, there's a reason it keeps being revealed.

And it gets worse as apparently it was Bentley's paramour behind it.

Crickets, eh? Interesting sound they make.

Here's one perspective on your idea I'm not sure if big cities can be considered monopolies, or if telecommuting technologies will someday be at the point where people don't have / want to be in high population areas. Of course if hyperloop technology delivers, cities may change again. Seems we should be discussing this more as a nation.

The Federal Government decided we needed new fonts for street signs.

Again.

According to a new study from the University of Surrey, Londonâ(TM)s Tube riders experience worse air than those who travel by car. In the worst cases, particulate levels in the subway system can be as much as eight times higher than those experienced by drivers. The pollution caused by motor vehicles may be a menace to health, but when it comes to exposure and potential health effects, it seems youâ(TM)re worse off underground.

e.g. https://www.citylab.com/transp...

For people who want to help the poor, there's charity and various NGOs.

Charities so far have failed to eliminate the cycle of poverty, but maybe if they keep doing the same thing over and over again they will get different results!

How would you eliminate the cycle of poverty? Education is supposed to be the great equalizer but poverty makes it hard to study and learn and so equal access to education tilts the playing field in favor of the wealthy.

In 10 years, the Seattle City council will complain about the impact of commuters on its road infrastructure

More likely they will be complaining about why there isn't enough usage of the mandatory tandem bicycle ride-sharing service that they instituted when they turned all the city's North-South streets into seven-abroad bicycle lanes.

I proudly call Seattle my home. And its mayors and city councils really do believe they're doing the right thing, bless their hearts. But they are pretty much all blithering idiots. Because Seattle is a tech boom town filled with generally liberal people, they have the money and political backing to do well-meaning but impractical things.

You know, things like spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a bike share program in a city that is full of huge f***ing hills and where it rains half the year. Or mandating a $15 minimum wage without studying it first and then seeing it decrease earnings of those it was designed to help, at least according to one recent study (more research over time is still needed to say for sure). There's a much longer list for someone crankier than me to make.

It's well meaning but it's almost universally poorly thought out in terms of unintended consequences. Like this income tax idea, which will perversely drive out the people who pay the most in property taxes and push them into driving into work from the suburbs. And Seattle already has miserable traffic. But, again, while the economic sun is shining the city has the leeway to try these grand but foolish experiments. Unfortunately, at some point the tech boom here will end and there will be a nasty bill to pay for it.

How would you end the cycle of poverty?

Education is supposed to be the great equalizer, but equal education for all won't end the cycle of poverty because poverty creates a cognitive load that puts poor people at a disadvantage compared to their wealthier classmates. The playing field is tilted in favor of the wealthy.

So how would you end the cycle of poverty? This is an important question because the lives of people trapped in poverty are dependent on the government, and that's a bad thing, right?

No idiot who is going to cause an accident will believe beforehand that they are going to do so. That is why accidents are called "accidents".

No, accidents are called accidents because there's no criminality.

You're right. While people do live in "flyover country", it pales in comparison to where the majority of Americans live.

http://www.citylab.com/design/...

The title is self-contradictory. When a crash is alcohol-related, it isn't accidental, it's criminally negligent.

Even the NYPD agrees that "accident" means "there's no criminality...that's why they call it an accident." But when alcohol is involved, there's criminality and therefore cannot logically be a true accident.

Sanctuary cities do not exist and nobody on the Progressive left talks about the need for them. Right?

Actually, they don't exist, especially not in the form that the Regressive right insists on falsely portraying them. They're pretty much just a straw-man where the right makes up false claims about lawlessness and crime in order to whip up a frenzy of hysteria.

Instead, what they are, is municipalities deciding that the Federal Government needs to be accountable, and forced to behave in a manner compliant with the law, by a policy of adherence to the strictures of law informing them that the cities won't knuckle under to their capriciousness. Not new, but a lingering problem for a supposed agency enforcing the law.

Of course, I'm old enough to remember when Janet Reno was demonized for returning Elian Gonzalez to his father. The mishandling of policies on Cuba is bad enough, but apparently we're supposed to decide parental rights on a whim?

So it's hypocrisy too. Even ignoring the other protests against the federal goverment, the silence on the failures of the immigration system is very telling.

Oh, I guess you are just another AC who's full of shit. Brave enough to hide in anonymity while claiming that I am being watched, as if you are a threat.

You're confused again, there's no threat to being judged, you're merely being observed, and recognized, for what your public behavior happens to be. It's called responsibility. You should recognize that as a natural consequence of communication. You spea

The salesman is at arms-length to the buyer in a private party purchase. There is no additional business connection. The uber model used Subprime loans/leases and advertised profits to those buyers that apparently could not be realized, with cars that these people arguably could not afford.

In my experience, if work requires you to pay them for something then it becomes morally shady. It's not necessarily egregious if the item is provided at a steep discount or is not a capital purchase, but it does not sound like the drivers got steep discounts and cars should qualify as capital purchases.

Besides, being morally wrong does not always mean being legally wrong. "Bad" as in, "Name ONE other bad thing Uber has done!" could easily be interpreted as the moral-grounds rather than legal grounds.

That's only true of small towns that aren't near a decent sized urban center. Which probably doesn't describe a very significant part of the country. 80% of the population lives in "urban" areas. Evidently that doesn't distinguish between big cities, suburbs which are on paper their own townships, and small isolated towns. So I don't know how much of the population lives in real small towns like you describe.

But I suspect that most people are able to change jobs without having to move, might be an increased commute, but not driving 3 hours through corn fields to get a new job.

Giving someone $2000 a month doesn't suddenly make them any better at money management.

Actually, it does.

Also don't live in a rural area because you are more likely to die violently there than in a city.

- in fact, the estimate you cite is absurd;

We've been tracking at the very highest end of that projection for the last few decades. Perhaps reality is also absurd.

you couldn't out-crawl even if your crutches floated away?

How fast do buildings run? The real question is "What is the cost of adapting to projected sea level rise?", or worse, as you are suggesting, "what is the cost of abandoning the beach front properties?"

Four billion is too many if we want everyone to enjoy a Western standard of living.

The world population is expected to peak at 10 billion in 2050 and then decline to 6 billion in 2100. The developed countries will have the most senior citizens and developing countries will have the most youthful citizens. It will be a very different world.

http://www.citylab.com/work/2013/04/could-earths-population-peak-2050/5208/

About 80% of the US population lives in urban areas. About 27% of the US population is aged 21 or under. That means about 22% of the US population is 21 or younger, and lives in urban areas. Given a population of 325 million, that's about 71 million urban people aged 21 or under. So his estimate of 50 million youths is probably pretty accurate...

Damn you slashdot tags! This bit:

~6% says that US urban population is ~81%.

Was supposed to be:
~6% less than 3mbps
~28% less than 10mbps
~52% less than 25mbps

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/ says that the US urban population is ~81%.

I really should learn to use the preview button.

Your argument is that people that happen to live in the less populated parts of the USA should have a greater say over its policies than people who live in cities. Why should this be?

Nowhere near "the majority of the population." You may want to recheck your population & voting stats Sparky.

Are you suggesting that 80% isn't a majority of the of the population?

Try again, prick.

Tornado season is March through November, with the VAST majority of tornadoes occuring in May through August. We're in the last 2 weeks of a ~36 week season, so we're not "half way" through, we're 95% of the way through.

Or you could, you know, simply allow some developers to come in and build some decent high rises in this city, thus loosening the market for quality real estate and in tandem causing rents across the board to drop. But no, that is too easy.

Blame Zoning, Not Tech, for San Francisco's Housing Crisis

http://www.citylab.com/housing...

There was a concerted effort to prevent municipal WiFi.

Citations, please...

Based on using both state government to preempt municipal WiFI (its illegal in most states)

WiFi is not illegal explicitly. Provision of non-government-specific services by the government is prohibited in some places. Which makes perfect sense — because the prospect of competing with the town hall is the kiss of death for an honest business-plan. But even where it was not prohibited — such as Chicago — it still fell apart. San Francisco — the nation's most "progressive" town — cancelled theirs in 2007. You were saying?

And, had it somehow succeeded, the entirely new sort of worms would've started coming out of the can.

It seems immensely popular once done.

Only among porn-surfers, it would seem. But do list your own citations, please.

Governments shouldn't run sneaker factories.

Why not? How else can the workers be protected from exploitation by KKKorporations interested only in profit$?!?! What, other than collective ownership of means of production, can prevent such abuses as well as shipping the manufacturing to other countries?

I challenge you to come up with an argument for government-owned WiFi or schools, that would not apply to a government-owned sneaker factory. Unlike with wired Internet — or water- and gas-pipes — there is not even the usual "last mile" argument with WiFi.

But there are plenty of things (e.g. roads) that work well when run by government.

Citations really are weak point of yours, let me help you. Ooops, government-owned roads obviously do not "work well" either. Would privately-owned ones be better? We never tried... But we can look around... If Tokyo can have privately-owned and competing subway/commuter-rail lines — which actually works well — why can't New York?

For about 100 years now, the Statists have been repeating the myth of "natural monopoly" — convincing the rest of us and themselves that some things are better done by "a public utility". Looked at carefully, the myth falls apart. We've fallen for it, when we gave AT&T their telephone monopoly — and paid dearly for that mistake. Why would anyone seek to repeat it in other markets?

the founding mantra of the USA is "equal opportunity,

A level playing field like that sounds good to me. That means eliminating the cognitive load caused by not knowing where your next meal is coming from and not knowing how you're going to pay the bills, because that cognitive load is a burden on the poor that the wealthy don't share and prevents the poor from climbing out of poverty.

So the "equal opportunity" you seek requires some form of welfare.

Does you net tax calculation include the cost of road repairs caused by motor vehicles that are not paid for by gas taxes? http://www.citylab.com/commute...

With coal, you can make it night all the time.

I called the Google map of DPRK/ROK at night, given that nighttime delivery and consumption of electricity is an indication of a modern society. Other than Pyongyang, the country is darker than a singularity. The difference could not be more dramatic.

That cartoon villain level of planning isn't needed at all. There are gaping holes in the TSA security net. They take the "security" out of "security theater"

Seriously, don't you all remember, the 95% ineffective part... http://www.citylab.com/commute...

Your individual freedom ends just before my bumper, so if self-driving cars result in a significant decrease in accidents, I have little sympathy for your desire to be able to T-bone my car in an intersection and kill my family when you missed the stop sign because you sneezed.

Do you take the same approach with your neighbors? Do they use gas powered lawn mowers or trimmers? The emission from those is a significant health hazard. How about barbecue grills or burning trash? House fires are much more prevalent in neighborhoods that allow open burning. Let's not forget that the neighbor that has trees in his yard is also a hazard to you because in a storm or high wind, that tree can come crashing through your roof.

Now, if you are really concerned about protecting your family, don't live in a major city, where accident rates are significantly higher. Of course, that is your personal choice, but then that isn't about the other person's liberty or choice having a negative impact on your life, but instead it is directly related to your choice.

If they are running their gas powered leaf blower in my living room, or driving their lawn tractor through the side of my house, yeah, I'd take the same approach - use it if you want to, but keep it out of my property and don't put my life at risk.

Open burn is not allowed where I live, and any burning at all is restricted across the state based on weather conditions. Yet people keep moving here faster than housing can be built to accomodate them.

don't live in a major city, where accident rates are significantly higher

I don't believe that's true, auto fatalities are split pretty evenly between rural/urban, but more people live in urban areas, so the rate is actually lower in urban areas.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

“urbanized areas” of 50,000 or more people ... For the 2010 count, the Census Bureau has defined 486 urbanized areas, accounting for 71.2 percent of the U.S. population.
http://www.citylab.com/housing... [citylab.com]

But you're missing the entire point of self driving cars -- to reduce the accident rate *everywhere*

Except you're not actually in the majority and, you're right, there's nothing you can do about it. Cars almost outnumber humans in the US. We have enough cars for almost every man, woman, and child. We have more cars than can be legally driven at any one time.

As I said above 809 automobiles for 1000 people. That doesn't include motorcycles and the 1000 people is not how many can lawfully drive but includes children, people without a license, and city dwellers. And no, no most Americans do not live in a city - unless you want to redefine the word city. That stat's made up and is only true for the reasons listed in my above post.

So, how do you like that?

No one is disputing that America has a lot of cars, but I don't see how that relates to people moving to self-driving cars? My household owns 2 cars, but that doesn't mean that we enjoy driving, the car is just a tool to go places. I'd be happy to turn driving over to the car if it can get me there as safe or more safely as I can get myself there. People drive today because they have no choice (outside of a few cities with good transit).

And no, no most Americans do not live in a city - unless you want to redefine the word city. That stat's made up and is only true for the reasons listed in my above post.

“urbanized areas” of 50,000 or more people ... For the 2010 count, the Census Bureau has defined 486 urbanized areas, accounting for 71.2 percent of the U.S. population.
http://www.citylab.com/housing...

This is America. You'll have better luck taking the firearms than you will taking the automobiles and the ability to control them.

Fewer and fewer young people are getting licenses -- By the time self driving cars are ready, that is the generation that will be deciding whether or not to embrace self driving cars.
http://nypost.com/2016/01/31/w...

And many drivers are forgoing car ownership through car sharing. Put the two together (fewer licensed drivers, acceptance of a non-owned vehicle), and the intersection is a self driving car.
http://www.alixpartners.com/en...

You can't have it your way and there's shit all you can do about it.

It's not "my" way, it's the way of the drivers 20 years from now.