Harry Moroz

The Transportation Status Quo

Writing at New Geography, Ken Orski expresses concern about the Obama administration’s plans for transportation policy and, particularly, its call for a strategic focus on livability:

If "livability” becomes a euphemism for a federal policy of favoring high density, transit-dependent living, then we are moving closely to “newspeak” when words mean whatever Big Brother intends them to mean.

For Orski, most Americans prefer suburban communities and their “amenities.” It is of no concern to him that the suburban amenities he lists – safe neighborhoods, access to good schools, “privacy” and “freedom,” comfort, convenience, and flexibility – are already themselves the result of the powerful, though largely silent, influence of Big Brother.

The geographically distortionary impact of federal housing, transportation, and environmental policy is old hat, at least on this blog, and Orski knows the arguments very well. What is important, though, is that Orski lays bear the truly conservative nature of his critique: Obama’s livability initiatives are invalid because they threaten the status quo.

Even as Orski attacks the livability plans as vague and “process-oriented,” he approvingly cites members of Congress and “the blogosphere” – he even quotes himself anonymously for some reason – disparaging the Obama plan’s gross intrusion into state and local affairs. Which is it then? Too little action or too much?

This gets at the crux of the problem with Orski’s criticism. The amount, even the type, of reform is irrelevant. The important thing is that Obama’s proposed transportation plan represents a break with the status quo. This in itself is what Orski objects to. Just like all defenders of the status quo, he dismisses Obama’s proposals as “futile.” After all, if reform seems impossible, why bother?

Valid objections to Obama’s transportation plans can be made. But overbroad references to the administration’s imposition of “its own vision of how Americans should live and travel” is no more than a defense of transportation policy – and its own interventions – as currently conceived and implemented.

Harry Moroz: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 4:38 PM, May 24, 2010 in Transportation
Permalink | Email to Friend