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Ben Wolfson's avatar

I admit I haven't looked into this at all, but I'd guess that Los Angeles is something of an outlier among US cities in its economic activity, and if you think Exeter has a traffic problem, hoo boy.

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Ziggy's avatar

If you look at the 19th century or earlier, transport infrastructure was very important for development. Cities were co-located with seaports, or perhaps at the waterfall line. Cities like Atlanta grew because a few railroad lines just happened to intersect there. Chicago was the easiest portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river system.

Nowadays, mostly yeah. Cities develop because people want to live there, or because jobs are plentiful. But transport is still developmentally important at the micro level. Rents are much higher near train stops than bus stops.

On the third hand, the city of Newark, NJ is beginning to boom because it happens to be a transport hub: an airport, a seaport, and a railhead--not to mention proximity to Gomorrah-on-the-Hudson. On the fourth hand, it had decayed despite these advantages.

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