8 Comments
Oct 26·edited Oct 26Liked by Jonn Elledge

Might start writing a book titled "How Density Will Fix the Future: Rediscovering the Essential Brilliance of Existing Together". Everything follows densification of land use. No-one's going to give up their personal motorised transport of whatever propulsion tech if they live on a noddy estate three miles up the road from a station along a dual carriageway. The case for further major investment in rail (or more properly, Mass Transit) in this country falls apart without it.

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I'd say you need to get people about at scale before densification, not after it - see also: Metroland. So I absolutely agree with you, but your book would be the follow-up, so to speak ;)

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Bravo! A fantastic and important post! Can't wait to read your new book and the upcoming one by Gareth Dennis.

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Well done on making the Foyles shortlist! (I’ll be buying Gareth’s book for my my train buff, social conservative, climate sceptic dad..)

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Picked up my copy of 47 Borders at my local bookstore last week!

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Unfortunately while this lists lots of real problems with auto electrification, I entirely miss the argument for how (re)-railroadization would work. As you say, the US in particular is largely sprawl, which is unservable by railroad. If we have to rebuild the predominant residential stock of the US before we can even get going on rebuilding the trams, I don’t see how to think of this as a serious policy proposal. You’re talking about investing many, many trillions.

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Fantastic Jonny. That's an amazing achievement. Congratulations

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Congrats 🎉

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