Jane Jacob’s Cities and the Wealth of Nations provides excellent background on the conflict between nations and their cities.
Reducing expenditures to import cars and oil will be a sources of Economic Development for Cities of $10,000 to $24,000 per car:
- Harvard study indicates the economic drain to the economy is $14,000/household/year (regardless of car ownership) and $12,000/car/year.
- Car costs a family about $9,282, is parked 95% of the time with ~85% of car costs leave the local economy. 2.24 cars per household (278.06 million cars, 124.01 million households) 4.6 tons of CO2/car/year
Import Reducing Cities are the engines of wealth creation. Cities can create wealth by:
- Reducing imports of oil by powering their city with solar.
- Reducing imports from automobiles by manufacturing solar-powered transport networks locally.
Divided Sovereignty is as important in economics as it is political structures::
- Nations are derived from “Hunting and Raiding” aspects of human behaviors.
- Cities are derived from “Making and Trading” aspects of human behaviors.
“trading networks of cities are somewhat like baseball or football teams. The players need a team, to be sure, or they can’t play at all, but each player on the team also needs to maintain his own skills. If he doesn’t and he isn’t replaced, the team’s performance suffers. If enough players deteriorate individually, the team is shot. It is this second fundamental need of cities, the need to keep themselves up to scratch individually, which nations serve so wretchedly owing to the feedback flaws that come with the territory.”
Jacobs, Jane. Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life (p. 209). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Cities need nations to protect them from war. Nations need cities to create wealth. Nations fail when their “Hunting and Raiding” nature implements Transactions of Decline that make cities less effective at wealth generation.
- Transfer payments, draining wealth from
- Subsidies, distorting the feedback loops cities need to correct imbalances.
- Grants, distorting the feedback loops cities need to correct imbalances
- Persistent military contracts, wealth consumption without producing value to the city.
- Advanced-backward trade, loans to poor nations to buy goods from large corporations. Essential a subsidy to large corporations.
Violating the Constitution, Federal highways force Americans to buy cars and oil. They block other modes.
