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this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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Hear ye hear ye. This is the actual visualization
Source:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/
seeing this all at once. its a lot. There is so much you can learn about the US just by looking at this. I hate it.
Not a single one of these sections is the correct size. Except maybe the maple syrup and the beer.
Replacing half of the cow pasture with (properly managed) timber would solve the worlds lumber shortage. I'd like to see more bamboo being grown. Its great for any buildings that are 4 stories or less. Or is it 3?
LOOK AT RURAL HIGHWAYS VERSUS TRAINS. FOR FUCKS SAKE.
tbf, a railroad is much more land efficient then highways so I'd expect that number to be pretty small no matter what. Though I suppose you could make the argument that the rural highways number should be zero, which is valid too.
I'm pretty annoyed they don't have parking lots or suburbs in there. Why are "rural highways" called out, but not the millions of miles of sprawling suburban roads?
Actually I think rural highways are fine. In my ideal world every city and town is connected by two lane each way highways. The highways would be along side freight and passenger rail lines.
The problem, imo, is with all the 4 lane each way highways. Making all the highways 2 lane each way would probably reduce total land use by a lot. But I could be misinterpreting the map. Its not clear what "rural" highway means. It also doesn't show total road usage. Extra road from sprawl is way worse than from rural highways. Poor town planning in the country also contributes. We should have villages instead of the weird clusterfuck of separated houses that are 2 hours by car from a hospital and 30 minutes from a grocery store.
Regardless it should be trains instead of trucks moving freight. In such a world I would imagine the train land usage would be around 1/3 of rural highways. In that map its about 1/9. Its less about the size of the rural highways and more about the size of the railways. If the USA didn't tear up all their rail infrastructure in the early 1900s it'd probably be like that today.
I think personal cars will always be a part of country life. And thats ok. But they should have an accessible train for long distances. Between ambulances, firetrucks, disability transportation, various work vehicals, and isolated people, cars have important uses. And they need roads.
Literally the problem is just suburbia. 15 minute cities, 5 minute neighborhoods.