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No More Freeways PDX

Started by Sub-Urbanite, September 22, 2017, 05:59:46 PM

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kalvado

Quote from: Bruce on April 02, 2018, 11:21:33 PM

Quote from: kalvado on April 02, 2018, 03:06:37 PM
And efficient construction of public transportation systems as well. New Berlin airport which opened in 2011 2012 2013 2016 2017 maybe will open in 2020 is a great example of efficiency!

Berlin is still on a poor side of Germany, and public transportation was significantly inherited from "no, you cannot buy a car" socialist approach.

This is very wrong. Most of the Berlin U-Bahn was on the West side (aka the "capitalist" side), while East Berlin had the majority of the old tram system and expanded their S-Bahn network to compensate. During the division of Berlin, U-Bahn trains would actually travel non-stop through East Berlin to connect segments in West Berlin, with each closed platform under armed guard.

Do you actually assume people didn't have to get to work on east side?


sparker

Quote from: kalvado on April 03, 2018, 08:51:08 AM
Quote from: Bruce on April 02, 2018, 11:21:33 PM

Quote from: kalvado on April 02, 2018, 03:06:37 PM
And efficient construction of public transportation systems as well. New Berlin airport which opened in 2011 2012 2013 2016 2017 maybe will open in 2020 is a great example of efficiency!

Berlin is still on a poor side of Germany, and public transportation was significantly inherited from "no, you cannot buy a car" socialist approach.

This is very wrong. Most of the Berlin U-Bahn was on the West side (aka the "capitalist" side), while East Berlin had the majority of the old tram system and expanded their S-Bahn network to compensate. During the division of Berlin, U-Bahn trains would actually travel non-stop through East Berlin to connect segments in West Berlin, with each closed platform under armed guard.

Do you actually assume people didn't have to get to work on east side?

Don't know how many of you were alive during the height of the Cold War, but after the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, there was very little commercial movement between East and West; East Germany quite deliberately cut itself off from the West, including West Berlin.  People living in the Western Sectors and working in the East found themselves unable to get to work -- and functionally unemployed (E. Germany simply brought workers in from elsewhere to replace Western employees).  If they couldn't find work in West Berlin, they simply migrated to other locations in West Germany.  Of all the Eastern European "satellite" states essentially controlled by the Soviet Union, East Germany was arguably the most regimented and tightly controlled.  From 1961 to the early 1980's there was very little free travel between East and West (not that there were Westerners clamoring to visit East Germany in any instance); it wasn't until the post-Brezhnev Soviet era (1982-1991) that things started "loosening up" -- but even then, East Germany lagged behind other Eastern European countries in establishing commercial and social contacts with Western Europe -- partially because their highly vertical power structure (in that case, a functionally permanent "dictatorship of the proletariat" -- but really a dictatorship of the top echelon of the state) was a formidable obstacle to any such moderation.  The wall came down in 1989, but most of East Germany was still postwar "scorched earth", requiring foundation-up reconstruction (largely financed by former West Germany, the foundation of the reunified nation -- but with added billions from the U.S. and the other NATO countries).   

Considering the troubles facing Europe as a whole today, one could make the point that things have progressed directly from the frying pan to the fire (hey, you're free -- but impoverished).  But at least it's not an unholy amalgam of socialism and fascism all rolled into one, like East Germany for 43 years -- although fascism seems to have reared its hideous head once again!



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