Portland is a PR machine for light rail & streetcar

Here are Some Facts About Portland Oregon          

“It must always be remembered how cost-effectiveness works in the public sector: the cost IS the benefit.” - author unknown

The Genius of 50 Year plans

The planners who plan 50 years out have to be very good at predicting the future. For example they must:

* Plan for the first freeway (in 1939) in 1889, 20 years before the first mass produced car and while YOUR city streets are covered by horse droppings.

* Plan for the rapid demise of buses and streetcars (starting in 1930), in 1880 before either become popular.

* Plan the interstate highway system before cars were mass produced.

* Plan for the 1942 wartime economy, mass migrations and housing of thousands of wartime workers, in 1892, before the first world war. You also get to plan for WWI before the civil war.

* Plan for jet capable airports before the airplane was invented.

* Plan for the 1953 introduction of color television, in 1903 before radio was in commercial use.

* Plan for the atom bomb in 1894 before the theory of atoms was solidified.

* Plan for transistor production in 1902, before Fleming's invention of the amplifying vacuum tube.

* Plan for personal computer production by the millions before the invention of the electronic computer and before the invention of integrated circuits.

* Plan for the internet during WWII when computers were rooms full of tubes breaking Nazi codes in Bletchley park.

* Plan for massive international air travel expansion, before the jet engine and when the dominate aircraft were biplanes shooting at each other over France.

* Plan for cell phone tower locations before there were walkie-talkies let alone wireless phones.

* Plan for color TV manufacturing before there was electronic television.

Conclusion: long range planning is a waste of time and can hurt progress by locking up future resources. It is an attempt to freeze society in today’s state.

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Too many people do not realize just how unknown the future, 100 years out, really is. For example, 100 years ago who predicted (and planned to accommodate) any of these:

* cars to replace horses.

* getting the coal to heat our houses over a wire.

* replacing gas lines for lighting with wires. (sending gas over wires)

* talking to the neighbor over a wire instead of over the back fence

* watching a move outside of a theatre

* watching a movie on a pocket device

* widespread use of electric motors

* listening to events from the next town over thin air

* listening to live events from Europe

* Watching live events from Europe

* pocket radios

* pocket TVs

* seeing both US coasts at once (Edward R. morrow in the 1950s)

* plastics

* cure for TB and hundreds of other diseases

* wiping out small pox from the face of the earth

* almost wiping out polio

* commercial air travel

* jet engine

* home refrigerators

* home air conditioners

* transistors & integrated circuits

* electronic computer

* affordable computer

* car radio (Motorola)

* car phone

* cell phone in the trunk of a car

* pocket cell phone

* pocket computer

* Listening to Edward R, Murrow in a plane on a bombing mission over WW2 Germany before the invention of the gas engine, airplane, aerial bombs, wireless, and before the civil war.