The Future of Cities

I live in a city now. Not long ago I lived in a suburb; Of sorts... I lived in the Town of Poughkeepsie. An area surrounding the City of Poughkeepsie. Which was in turn about 2 hours outside of New York City. Things were just far enough part that a car was unquestionably necessary. A major supermarket was 4 miles away, the Mall way almost 10 miles away. For 3 years I commuted to another town on the other side of the river 25 miles away. Not having a car was out of the question.

Now I live in Albuquerque, the largest city in New Mexico. Things are different. I can see how cities have been built to demand cars, but don't really need to be that way. My previous experiences of visiting New York City nobody had a car because nobody needed a car. They're generally the slowest way of getting around a city that dense. But Albuquerque is different. Until the last 10 years or so there was always room to expand in any direction. Now, there is still room for the city to sprawl out toward the west. The north, east, and south however are all locked in by an Indian Reservation, a mountain and, an Air force base respectively.

So while it is about 30 miles form one corner to the other. It could be vastly transformed by better public transit. We'll see how the first step works out. A kind of trolley bus is being setup to run from the major shopping district of Central Avenue to the downtown district along the old Route 66.

This video on the subject inspired me.