Monday, August 21, 2017
Graybill and transportation
Reviewing Graybill's Law:
The people of Free-Trade countries are therefore driven into the few occupations which are left, by reason of the destruction of their formerly more varied pursuits. Hence those diversified talents with which men are endowed are not developed but remain latent and unused, an incalculable detriment to the prosperity of their respective countries.
I've applied this to currencies and resources.
It also applies to modes of transportation. When a city or country is self-sufficient and self-contained, it develops a WIDE VARIETY of everything. Skills, resources, ways of getting around, newspapers, anything you name. Having a wide variety of transportation and services makes it possible to KEEP a wide variety of people employed and paid, which makes it possible to KEEP a wide variety of transportation and services running.
When globalism CLAMPS down, each city and country is required to perform exactly ONE service or provide exactly ONE resource. Everything CLAMPS down to serve the ONE purpose.
= = = = =
Small towns always built more than one way of getting around. Streets for horses and cars, streetcar tracks, and sidewalks. Even the TINIEST towns had sidewalks.
Let's look at Coyville, a town that hasn't changed much since its non-globalist founding.
Original town, 1886:
Current map, 2017:
I see one new block at the NE corner, otherwise the same.
Coyville wasn't quite large enough for a newspaper. Its population peaked at 232 in 1920. The minimum to sustain a weekly was around 400. Nearby Fall River, at 383, did have a paper:
Googlestreet's view of the "center" of Coyville:
And a typical busy boulevard elsewhere:
Except for Main (Decatur), which is a county road, the streets haven't been paved or maintained. Most of them are a single pair of wheel ruts. But the sidewalks abide.
Admittedly this is a little unfair. Coyville is in SE Kansas, an area that doesn't get serious snow or serious cold. No frost-heave, not much ice, no evil pine roots. So sidewalks have a decent chance of survival.
Still, this is a universal pattern in small towns everywhere. Some blocks never got houses or pavement, and most blocks have lost their houses and pavement. Sidewalks abide.
Current map, 2017:
I see one new block at the NE corner, otherwise the same.
Coyville wasn't quite large enough for a newspaper. Its population peaked at 232 in 1920. The minimum to sustain a weekly was around 400. Nearby Fall River, at 383, did have a paper:
Googlestreet's view of the "center" of Coyville:
And a typical busy boulevard elsewhere:
Except for Main (Decatur), which is a county road, the streets haven't been paved or maintained. Most of them are a single pair of wheel ruts. But the sidewalks abide.
Admittedly this is a little unfair. Coyville is in SE Kansas, an area that doesn't get serious snow or serious cold. No frost-heave, not much ice, no evil pine roots. So sidewalks have a decent chance of survival.
Still, this is a universal pattern in small towns everywhere. Some blocks never got houses or pavement, and most blocks have lost their houses and pavement. Sidewalks abide.Labels: Patient things, skill-estate
¶ 9:31 AM
