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Wednesday, Sep 11, 2002
One Lap Around a Polder
September 11, 2002
Despite the intanglements oil dependence creates, Bush hasn't asked Americans to make even minor sacrifices. Perhaps in his mind, asking Americans to avoid supersizing their SUVs will allow the terrorists to win.
I've visited Amsterdam a few times, and admired their use of the bicycle. This time, I've made a more concerted effort to ride. Both today and yesterday I've done 40 km loops from Amsterdam, out to the country side and back.
The Dutch love of the bicycle seems rooted in their ability to cling to the best aspects of the past while embracing the best that the future has to offer. Compact, efficient residential areas allow people to walk, ride, use the tram to cross town quickly. Newer residential areas can be identified by the age of buildings, but otherwise are similar in scale to areas settled 400 years earlier.
While cars certainly can be liberating, they seem to imprisoning Americans in gridlock and pollution at an increasing rate. In many newly developed areas, there's simply no other way to get around. And as these suburban areas mature, commuters find themselves spending hours per week behind the wheel. It's a cycle that leads downward, but how far down?
America's advantage in the 20th century was having a clean slate. We had wide open spaces, and were free to build new cities any way we wanted. That slate is pretty fucked up right about now.
Europe seems to have a better understanding for the consequences of their actions. They see that their cities, roads, political systems, have shapes and designs based on decisions made hundreds of years ago, and dozens of years ago, and just last week.
Having no sense of history, America seems to live in the perpetual present. No legacy, no consequences. As the last bits of the empty slate are squandered, America will begin to learn about the unavoidable consequences of profligate choices.
pol·der n.
An area of low-lying land, especially in the Netherlands, that has been reclaimed from a body of water and is protected by dikes.