2/3 of Americans Without Broadband Don't Want It 538
Ant writes in with news that won't be welcomed by the incoming US administration as it tries to expand the availability of broadband Internet service. A recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates, as noted by Ars Technica, that two-thirds of Americans without broadband don't want it. "...when we look at the overall reasons why Americans don't have broadband, availability isn't the biggest barrier. Neither is price. Those two, combined, only account for one-third of Americans without broadband. Two-thirds simply don't want it. The bigger issue is a lack of perceived value."
Don't want to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they want it. They just don't want to pay scary fees for it.
It's Old Century Ignorance talking. By 2013 this topic won't exist.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Who doesn't want broadband? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who doesn't want broadband? Old people, that's who.
They don't want the Internet. They want to knit and watch the Price is Right. Who are we to condemn them for that?
Some people on this site make an awful lot of noise about not watching TV. What's wrong with that? It's all about personal choice.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
especially the elderly, have no need or desire for the internet.
I suspect that when I am in my eighties, I will have
much less desire to communicate with the world or check the news on a minute by minute basis.
Just because some of us use the internet on a regular basis, that
doesn't mean that everyone would be better off for it.
They got their War, they can have our Broadband :) (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the main issue is people don't want to pay for it. They're happy in their cozy little niches and don't want to look to the wider world and notice the USA is falling behind. Head in the sand, and all that. Why pay to keep up with our economic competitors when that money can be used to raise another child?
Perhaps I'm being cynical.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they want it. They just don't want to pay scary fees for it.
Yeah. The key problem with US broad band is the people providing the broadband and not the customers.
I would almost suspect this kind of report would be used by the providers as an excuse not to roll out to rural areas.
Of course, these same companies will quash any rural municipality attempt to create their own network.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Logical. (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember back when we had lie 8 channels on TV and that was with Cable. If you had all three networks and PBS what else did you need?
Then I heard about people in NY that had like 100 channels. A lot of people just don't see why they need broadband.
Netflix? They watch Movies on TV they don't watch them on their computer.
Download music? Adults just don't buy that much music. I bought my step dad an MP3 player. It was too hard for him to rip the CDs. He uses the internet to send email. He still uses the weather channel for weather and he has a minor in meteorology. I want internet everywhere and always and super fast.
I think that it will just take time and devices that are not PC to get everybody on line.
No its not. (Score:5, Insightful)
People use the "they are deprived of it" "they deserve it" "its a right" more often than not because they want something themselves.
It is far easier to decry we don't have enough availability when you reference others - you can assuage your guilt that way.
Look, relatives of mine live on a farm. They care about the weather and look up current prices on feed and end products they sell. They have no need of anything but dial up and its done at the dark of the night because that is when they are done outside. To them its a tool. The problem with too many people is they can't tell a tool from entertainment anymore... they cannot tell work from addiction
Honestly I could live just fine without the net and cell phones, I grew up in the age when they weren't being rammed down our throats by everyone who wants to make a buck and that is what this availability is really about - businesses need to get into our wallets and someone decided that this will be the new means of doing so, trouble is we aren't playing along hence we must be ignorant.
yeah, whatever. I have high speed internet, my relatives do not, we are both happy and I would not change them and they would not change me. No ignorance, just acceptance that other people enjoy their lives just the way they are and aren't missing out on anything
Re: Willing to pay ... small amounts (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose it were only some $12 a month like Dialup is now. They'd like it. For example there's a huge knitting club that meets in our local bookstore. I have heard them talk about downloading knitting patterns. It would take them 12 seconds instead of 38 minutes each.
It's a P-word thing. (Paradigm).
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
demographic versus coverage (Score:4, Insightful)
Bad article (Score:5, Insightful)
You're always going to have people who don't adopt a new technology. These people shouldn't be used to not improve the technology for the rest of us.
Well (Score:3, Insightful)
We will all be, eventually, old people. And we wont want to pay for, nor we will be interested in, that crappy holistic multiversic quantinet our kids will happily plug in their brains.
I say leave the elders alone and let them buy their paper and sit at the diner and chat amongst friends over a cup of joe.
The net, contrary to all that idiocy, does not automatically make you or anyone smarter, better or more productive. Hey, Ive seen pretty good arguments -Giovanni Sartori- that point in the other direction for some cases, and what I see being done to language in SMS messages by youngsters makes me want to send them all to linguistic concentration camps.
Why this strange neurosis on trying to get everyone to facebook their ass?
I dont really get social networks actually, I think they are the worst to ever happen to privacy and will eventually cost us individual freedom.
Now youtube is another story. I like that one and their pr0n equivalents (better).
So there: people that dont want broadband perhaps like real life better and im not sure thats bad at all.
Re:They got their War, they can have our Broadband (Score:4, Insightful)
That is a sad statistic (Score:4, Insightful)
and lower prices, so if the majority of the people living in the US without
broadband don't want cheaper/better performing internet then something must
be really really wrong.
I would be guessing the lack of competition, throttling, being treated like dirt
and then spending a (comparatively) huge amount of money for the privilege
has probably scared those people off.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually...not just 'old' people.
I have a friend of mine...he works in the somewhat tech industry. He works with computer applications (CRM stuff, Crystal reports, etc). But, when away from work, he is such a luddite. He still has a broadband connection at home (a leftover from some indie work) BUT, he never uses or checks it for email or whatever. If it were not there at all, he'd not miss it. He does not allow sms txt on his phone (had it shut off). Basically....he only wants to communicate either in person, or in voice over the phone. He apparently barely reads or does email at work beyond what is forced on him by work situations.
Me? I'm a junkie on the internet. I'm a horrible TV junkie...but, I've found that as I've recently moved, I can live much easier without tv than I can without internet connectivity. I may be a bit older, like the old Koreans, I used email for probably 99% of my communications with my other friends. I often carry on real time conversations on email....just never got into IM, and I can IM at work sites (security risk). I'm gonna get a sms text plan on my next phone buy...as that I have started using that more and more too.
But with respect to my friend...I can see where there are a significant number of people that don't want it or need it. They actually might be antagonistic against it somewhat thinking it too impersonal a method of communication.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
I consider myself moderately young (or young minded) and I steer clear of facebook or other social networking crap. My friends my age have it, but, I'm too concerned about privacy issues, etc to mess with that. I'm still of the mindset I got from the earlier days of the internet...try to stay anonymous as you can within reason. At the very least, don't go posting pics of yourself half nekkid with friends, sucking a skull bong.
It could come back to haunt you later for a job interview...especially if it is security related.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
My Parents are Frugal (Score:4, Insightful)
They both grew up with post-war shortages, and as a result they're naturally frugal. My dad uses the internet for email, forums and light web surfing, all on dial-up. Why? Because it's cheaper.
Here in Vancouver, dial up is about $10 per month, broadband is about $30 per month. To my dad's thinking, that's an extra $240 per year that he'd rather have in his pocket. If he needs broadband for something like Google earth he just strolls down to the library and surfs for free. He's retired, after all.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:2, Insightful)
Um, no they don't. My generation "needs" broadband. A lot of older people, especially the elderly, have no need or desire for the internet. I suspect that when I am in my eighties, I will have much less desire to communicate with the world or check the news on a minute by minute basis. Just because some of us use the internet on a regular basis, that doesn't mean that everyone would be better off for it.
My anecdotal evidence suggests you are incorrect. My 80 year old father regularly surfs the net via his broadband connection while sitting in his recliner with his laptop (wireless of course). He falls asleep and drops his laptop occasionally, but nothing has died yet. My 74 year old mother sits upstairs and uses email and google talk to communicate with her children and grandchildren.
Some day soon, high speed connectivity will be as normal as electricity is in the developed world.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
and even if you gave them broadband for free they still wouldn't be interested.
Until they find the porn.
Re:It's not a rational decision (Score:3, Insightful)
How is that "not rational?" What if they're happy the way they are? It is more irrational to pretend that you or I know what they "need" in their lives. Maybe we know what we "need" (doubtful, most of the time) but we don't know what they "need."
If they're happy without technological woes, computer trouble, viruses, spam, facebook, myspace, arguing about Linux vs. Windows vs. Apple, and other easy wastes of time, who is to say they are leading inferior lifestyles or "missing out?"
I dunno... (Score:5, Insightful)
It took us forever to get mother-in-law on broadband. Her computer is a cast-off donated by one of her sons which I've upgraded a couple of times. Thing is, she only uses it for email. Why would you need broadband for that? She finally converted when the local cable company offered her a package that essentially included it for free compared to the combined cost of phone/tv/dialup.
Parenthetically, I think this is the only way you're going to convert casual users -- by bundling broadband in with services considered more important.
Having broadband at her house helps me when our family visits, because I can work from there if necessary (I'm on call essentially 24/7) instead of driving down to the local coffee shop to use their wifi. But for her, the value is that her Outlook Express mailbox fills up in 2 seconds instead of 12. Given her computer takes 4 1/2 minutes to boot, the speed of fetching her email is down in the noise.
I think most of the unwashed public just can't see any value. (other than looking at pr0n...) This seems odd to us geeks, but it's demonstrably true -- demonstrable if you know any non-geeks. Unless you're streaming video, the higher bandwidth is barely perceptible. Who cares if a page loads in 1/8 of a second instead of 1/2 of a second? Well, I do, (and there seems to be unnecessary latency on my 20/5 FIOS line) but I observe (without completely understanding) that normal people do not.
If you want broadband saturation, you need a Killer App. Until very recently, there wasn't any legitimate non-geek use for it. Now you can catch up on TV episodes and watch old programs as streaming video. This is a good start, but it isn't as cool to the rank and file as you might think. Fred and Ethyl are used to watching TV on their TV, and having to crouch over a 17 inch monitor and poke webpage buttons with a mouse is not part of their paradigm. (There are solutions for all of this, but they're not well integrated -- forget it unless you know a geek.)
The Netflix box, Apple TV, are a good start -- they're actually *more* convenient than driving to Blockbuster, rather than *less* convenient. (I tried to explain torrents to my mom once. Yeah, right...) But the hard fact is, Fred and Ethyl are still more likely to watch whatever is on cable at the time their butts happen to be on the couch. It's just the way it is.
In this response, I've completely ignored the huge amount of non-entertainment information available on the internet, because I think the great majority largely ignores it also. If an online news service has a million unique hits, that's not much in a country of 300+M people. I suspect that the great majority still wants someone attractive-looking to tell them what's important in 43 minutes minus commercials. This concerns me, because it tends to further stratify the country, but making someone buy a product they don't want and don't think they need is always going to be problematic.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Some of us need broadband? Have you tried to apply for a job without the internet lately?
You can't apply for a job using 50k dialup? Huh. I guess I'm just using magic then. (Waves hands over the resume - "transmit!")
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
I find the example of your grandmother and the microwave oven a little funny. Only because I grew up using microwaves and over the last year or two, as I've learned to cook, I've gradually stopped using it. I don't think I've used our microwave at all in the past year.
I admit there's convenience and I don't blame or condemn people for using them. But everything you can do with a microwave you can do better (albeit slower) with traditional methods. The results are soooo much tastier if you put your hot sandwich in the oven, melt your butter in a small sauce pan or defrost your meat slowly in the fridge etc.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:3, Insightful)
Too True. Some anecdotal evidence for you:
(1) My father refused to switch over to broadband until 2000, despite the pleas of his children. When he switched over, and suddenly didn't have to suffer the painful slowness of 56k, his comment was, said aloud, "Why the hell did I object to this?" (2) My mother-in-law has refused to switch over to broadband until this past year, even though the dial-up internet for her was so slow, cumbersome, and time-consuming, she almost never even used it anyhow. She'd pull out city maps and use the telephone for directions; I'd generally have to spend an extra 20 minutes figuring out how to get to our destination when at her home. When she switched, the convenience was too great to doubt.
A better metric would be to see how many people who HAVE broadband would prefer to go back to dial-up, as they discovered don't need/want broadband. The article seems to suggest that this number would be practicaly zero.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:1, Insightful)
The difference between $9/mnth dialup and $40/mnth + 2 year contract is negligible?
You're not living on a fixed income, or have children...
Re:THEY dont want it. and also, they dont want it (Score:3, Insightful)
Me: We need to get internet mom!
Parents: No. What good is it?
Me: Uhh you can send emails and read news and informational sites online.
Parents: I don't see it being worth it.
* fast forward a year *
Parents: The internet is out call the ISP and ask them how long it'll be down.
--
Me: We should get broadband.
Parents: We don't see any reason for faster internet. This seems perfectly fine to us.
* fast forward a year *
Mom: The internet is really slow! What's wrong with it?
*runs speed test*..... 800kbps.
Me: It's still 20 times faster than dial up. But there must be something wrong at the router.
------
If you don't use the internet you don't understand its value. If you don't use broadband you don't see its value.
This is an educational and experiential problem. You can't explain the every day convenience and power of the internet without personally finding why it's useful for you.
For me it's industry forums and blogs to improve my skillset. It's shopping and IM.
For my mom it's shopping, geneology and email.
For my grandpa it's just email. But he's still on dial up and honestly 'discovering' the internet is very difficult when you have to wait 3 minutes to go somewhere.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
It could come back to haunt you later for a job interview...especially if it is security related.
I think it's going to go the other way once people begin to realize that most people are human and have a life outside of the office. In other words, people will loosen up a bit and realize that having pictures of yourself doing the stuff that everybody else is doing anyway isn't a bad thing, the increased transparency will force standards to relax. Sort of like how Clinton didn't inhale, Bush snorted coke, and Obama smoked pot, yet they were all able to be elected. 50 years ago that likely wouldn't have been the case.
Perhaps we'll finally lighten up a bit about nudity now that porn, and all sorts of weird stuff at that, is so readily available online and viewed in such massive numbers.
DSL/Cable is $29.99, as is most dial-up (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd think that we'd do anything to save time, but there are all kinds of folks (particularly older and/or uneducated) that are willing to do things the tedious, long, hard way rather than be troubled to learn anything new. Everytime I've been in a job in IT and watched employees waste company time doing things inefficently (e.g. doing labels one-at-a-time), I've tried to teach them and if they were completely unwilling to even listen or try it, I go to their supervisor and say "I can make a lot more efficent for your department but he/she is completely unwilling to consider it" and usually they come around or are disciplined if they continue to waste time. Half of the battle is knowing.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:1, Insightful)
Alternatively, you could stop hanging out half naked and sucking on a skull bong... or at least stop doing it where people will take your picture. If you'd be terribly screwed if a certain group of people found out you were doing a particular activity, and you're doing said activity in front of people (i.e., not doing it without witnesses, masturbation is "safe")... well, that's going to come back and bite you in the ass eventually anyway, Facebook or no.
Re:However, 1/3 do want it (Score:4, Insightful)
They're sort of "trying to speak your language". When I'm talking to someone who thinks that only communists see value in infrastructure, I use the interstate highway system as an example, and they usually end up begrudgingly agreeing that infrastructure isn't all bad. And it works partially because it's sometimes the same people who LOVE cars because they believe that the alternatives (e.g. trains) are communist too.
And yes, I'd prefer to talk about something like trains, and the benefit it would have for our country to have a decent railway system, but that's kind of a step too far for some people. Besides, I can't exactly point to our existing train system as a rousing success, since it's been so poorly maintained.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, no, I'm not a communist or socialist. I'm just interested in having our be economically prosperous and generally efficiently run. I don't like the idea of the federal government doing very much, but building/maintaining/regulating large-scale infrastructure is one of a couple things the federal government should actually be doing.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>The older generation doesn't know they want it.
You (and some others) sound like the TV preacher I recently heard. "Many people don't know they need GAWD in their lives. They don't know it, but they DO need him, because he will make their lives better!" (crowd cheers). "We must give them gawd as soon as possible even if they claim they don't want it. It's for their own good!"
Replace "gawd" with "broadband" and you have a politician and/or slashdotter.
(ducks spitball)
Re:I can relate (Score:1, Insightful)
A year and a week ago my house burned down so I moved out to the country.
Since then I have had:
No tuned tv, only dvds and my ps3
No internet other than my iPhone
No phone line other than my iPhone
and you know what, I don't miss any of it really. I have too many other things to do now, like cutting firewood. I do miss online gaming with my pals, but not that much really since so much hassle is involved. When I have watch the tube over at someone's house I marvel at how many ads they are choked on, especially since they have to pay to watch them.
Nope, don;t miss it that much.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:2, Insightful)
Pizza is still best rewarmed in a standard oven or toaster oven, though.
Something to consider... (Score:3, Insightful)
Every new PC with a fast internet connection is another potential spambot. Knowledgeable people, or people who know knowledgeable people, can take steps to avoid getting pwn3d. The rank and file are at the mercy of, well, everyone, and the ISPs are not helping.
When I heard that mother-in-law had finally gotten cable internet, I asked her how they had set it up... They powered up a vanilla cable modem and connected her Windows PC to the raw internet! I told her to turn off her computer, drove the 3 hours to her house, installed and configured a firewall appliance between her computer and the modem. It was a pain, but scrubbing her computer later would potentially have been a greater pain.
Many ISPs give you a router with some firewall capabilities, but there are many others, especially the cheaper ones, who are just passing out modems without even NAT capability. Imagine another 100 million spambots with broadband. I know, it's your responsibility to keep your own machine secure, but most people will just reboot to catch an IP address and then "hey, look at all the pr0n!".
I would submit that we don't *want* millions of new Joe Sixpacks on the net until we establish that it can be done with reasonable safety.
This is not elitist. It's self-defense.
Let me put on my tinfoil hat for a minute... I have it somewhere. Ah here it is. Consider this: What is our main defense against the pap that talking heads feed us in monolithically owned news services? The internet. What would be a really great way to severely diminish it's usefulness? Cause the creation of the largest botnet in history. Not that I'm paranoid or anything.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
I always find this argument interesting. How many anecdotes does it take to become a truth or near truth. I could talk about stories I've hear about people getting hit by cars because they didn't look both ways before crossing the street. Enough anecdotes like that and a truth emerges that if you don't pay attention in traffic, you can be killed, especially if you are a pedestrian. So how many is enough? Or do we now need some sort of scientist to gather them up and publish the anecdotes and his or her conclusion before the general public should pay heed to it. Common sense is indeed, not so common. Please, no more dogmatic arguments. Hitler. There I said it. Now you can invoke Godwin's stupid law too.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
IMO, Computer skills, in general, are becoming what literacy was a century ago. Sure, it is a skill that some don't have, and those that don't often are not constrained by money, or availability of the requisite materials.
And in some cases, such the case of the elderly, or a factory worker living in a trailer park, somewhere, the skill may not be needed. But those who choose to do without are limiting themselves and their potential.
As for their children and neighbors, well, they are part of that other 1/3, and the fact that they are outnumbered does not make computer literacy any less useful for them.
Ditto for rail and many other things (Score:4, Insightful)
The don't want it because they don't know what it can do. It's the same reason we don't have a good national (or even regional) electric train system. Few people have ever seen one, know that they exist, or have any idea of the benefits.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, explain the benefits of broadband for a person who does nothing but email with her computer.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:3, Insightful)
Well then.. when broadband costs the same as dialup.. you should be just fine sticking to your guns and using dialup.
Due to scales of economy, you might be given a broadband modem tuned down to 50K. But that will be OK with you.
I'm looking at generic very high speed bandwidth as a general purpose utility. Would be nice to actually CHOOSE between cable companies (video providers), for once. Anyone remember how we were supposed to get cable competition? I do.
Re:Ditto for rail and many other things (Score:4, Insightful)
I was just about to post this.
I was going to say that 2/3 of people who didn't have a telephone didn't want one and then 2/3 of people who didn't have a cell phone didn't want one.
It's ignorance. They don't know what it's capable of or even how to use it. It's not that they don't want it, it's that they don't yet know how much they want it.
I wish we had a train system here in miami. A bullet train to orlando would be sweet.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:3, Insightful)
And it will backfire. The kind of people that you want to hire are those that are generally happy and socially well adjusted, because they're better able to work with others effectively. A facebook profile that shows them regularly socializing with friends would support that.
2/3 don't want it ?? (Score:2, Insightful)
* Perceived Value: Some people don't do that much on the internet. They will never do it. It is a fact. Yes the like emails, and youtube videos, but, they just don't sit around all day doing that sort of thing.
* Expense: My parents are cheap asses. They have loads of cash in the bank, but this is how they keep it. My dad is mad when he has to change his phone service from the $9 a month to $11 service so he can shut it off 6 months out of the year when he does not leave his home, and keep his number. Some people look at every dollar spend as a bad thing, and going from something that works, and is okay which is $10 a month, to something $30 a month, while faster and more desirable, at the end of the day costs $20 more.
* Inconvenience: You have to pay your bills, deal with routers, multiple computers, etc. You need someone willing to help you with all of this. How much time will you spend on the phone when you don't understand it all, and have questions.
* Lack of Availability: Despite all the reasons above, some people want broadband. My parents want to (as long as it is not too expensive, and they can turn it off so they are not paying for it when they are not at home 6 months of the year). No provider is going to cross the channel, bury cable, and get it to their house several miles away from the mainland, just so they can get $25 cable. Satellite is too expensive (remember the previous conditions), and coverage is sometimes spotty where they live.
Everyone has their reasons. I have broadband, my siblings have broadband, and that is great. We justify it by doing other things. MagicJack is my phone system so I don't have to spend a shit ton on the phone as well. I spend very little on cable (and just so I can get a DVR with multiple HD channels). Everyone has their requirements, and they change over time.
Re:I can relate (Score:4, Insightful)
You abandoned your blog because you had nothing interesting to say? ... I wish more people would do that.
Re:Don't want to pay (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Your chocolate is a lot less likely to seize in the microwave than a double boiler.
2) Rice is a breeze in the microwave, and you don't have to worry about scorching (unless your microwave is hideously overpowered).
3) Microwave popcorn delivers consistently better results than popping kernels in oil on the stove.
4) Microwave an egg in the right sized ramekin and you've got your breakfast sandwich filling ready faster than you can toast your english muffin.
5) There's no way to use a conventional oven to make Peeps explode.
Bad infrastructure screws people (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me rebut a few of the things you mentioned:
First off, highways screwed cities. If you can drive anywhere, you don't need the concentration of goods that a city offers, and more so, you allow people to get to work without having to live near it. Essentially this has turned American cities into corporate islands surrounded by ghettos because nobody wants to live in cities but everyone will take the high paying
This is not the case in Europe. That's because along with highways, Europe developed their public transportation systems as well. What screwed the populace was forcing everyone to use them, and not developing multiple modes of transport. Americans have this idea that everyone should use roads and that's somehow better than public transportation, which happens to be cleaner, cheaper, and safer.
Secondly, highways screwed local stores. No national brand could exist without highways to truck goods all over the place. Everyone that bitches about the likes of Walmart, McDonalds and every other chain and laments the death of the local foods in the local store need only look at the highway to see why this took place.
Same idea as above. With the decentralization of the population and more in suburbs, making it convenient to get what you need in one place became crucial when you had to drive everywhere. What's funny about this is, when I lived in Philadelphia when going to college, I could literally get and do anything I wanted. Out in the suburbs I can go to a walmart and I can't quite get everything I wanted, despite their claim. The items they wish to sell don't garner enough profit margin or are specialty items you can't find in bulk, like crafts or art. I'm stuck with what they want to sell me. The inner city truly has the most variety, followed secondly by remote antique craft-like areas way out in the boonies. The suburbs have the LEAST variety because it's all the same where ever you go.
Philadelphia keeps experiencing a population decrease because the traffic in town is terrible. Philadelphia was designed with narrow streets (it's the oldest major city in the US) and traffic is horrid in town. Our public transportation sucks. Getting around by bike is great, though slightly risky and you can't get to the furthest reaches of town or to the suburbs without a lot of time or a car or a train to that specific destination, which aren't that common. For the sake of the public, if they would try to revamp transportation in the city, perhaps more people would stay and variety would flourish in town.
Third, the highways really screwed blacks in America, because usually, in cities, all the overpasses and bridges and what not were all built in black neighborhoods, pretty much destroying the asset base of an already fragile population. New York City is a perfect example of this, and there are many black leaders that curse the name of Moses to this day - and no, not the biblical Moses.
You are correct on that, but that's not the highway's fault. That's the fault of racist politicians and racism itself. It's also the fault of the contractors trying to do things for the cheapest money possible. The millionaires uptown are going to hire expensive lawyers to uphold the NIMBY principle for themselves, even if it made sense to move them for the sake of the greater good. Big money is also to blame, which is a problem when people are forced out of their houses because it makes someone else a huge amount of money. There are plenty of public works projects that were performed for the good of the money grubbers involved, and not for the good of the people. That's a problem with the system of review not the highway.
Hoover dam screwed everyone that had local water, or needed the flow from the river downstream of the dam. You go to all this expense to get a good spot downstream and the government shuts you off. Or you go to all this expense to get your own water supply, and the government goes and doles it out to everyone else on the cheap, mak