[PRCo] Re: McKeesport

[Fred Schneider]

I would say the Europeans are lucky because the high fuel prices and better land policies prevent the suburbs we have.   Yes, they have $7 a gallon gasoline in Germany although they are paid more than we are so it may not be terribly bad.   

The important thing is that they have learned to live in their cars for 5,000 miles a year with perhaps one in a family, while we think we need a car for every licensed driver and each one puts 12,000 miles on their car.   That means we can easily put 24,000, 36,000 or 48,000 miles on cars in an American family.   The Europeans are putting 5,000 on the car and a good portion on the bus or streetcar or train or subway which we have forsaken.   They also still know how to walk, which might be a contributing factor to them living two or three or four years longer than we do.   

They also understand that it costs a lot less to live in 1,000 or 1,500 square foot homes or apartments and heat the rooms you are using and close the doors on the rooms you are not using than to heat or air-condition an entire 3,000 square foot house.   

Yes, Dennis, we both know they have suburbs too.   But their idea of a suburb today is similar to ours of 1920s ... closely settled with sidewalks leading to the station where you catch the commuter train into the city.

By the way, you should have seen the13x27 digital color prints that John Bromley had at the East Penn meet on Saturday.   He bought a new Epson printer and has graduated beyond 8x10s.   The new Nikon D7000 is like using a using 8x10 color negatives in a single lens reflex!   He had some absolutely fabulous stuff taken on the Rhaetischebahn in the Swiss Alps this spring.   Makes one wonder why any fool like me is still taking slides.   


On May 16, 2011, at 7:05 AM, Dennis F Cramer wrote:

> The music should be more "The Way We Were". I do not believe most of the 
> viewers have the romanticized feelings the videographer had in mind, read 
> the comments under the video, but some of it is the McKeesport I remember as 
> a child. Luckily we got out of there in 1962.
> 
> McKeesport is like so many other mill towns, they began their decline in the 
> 1960's and have never made it back. Is the automobile and cheap gas to 
> blame? We built suburbia and now wonder why mass transit cannot save us from 
> higher fuel prices. We are still lucky in comparison to fuel prices in 
> Europe.
> 
> 
>          Dennis F. Cramer
> http://home.windstream.net/dfc1
> 
> 
> 
>