Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Economics

How Car Dependency Turns Suburban Dreams into Foreclosure Nightmares

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 7, 2011 | 3 Comments

According to an analysis by the Center for Neighborhood Technology of 2002 mortgage data, 250 people applied for mortgages every day in Chicago, and only 150 were approved. The top reason for rejecting the other 100? Applicants had too much credit tied up in car ownership. And mortgage lenders have only gotten more skittish since […]

Fmr. Comptroller General: We Can’t Solve Our Problems With Spending Cuts

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 3, 2011 | No Comments

In an op-ed in this morning’s New York Times, Laura D’Andrea Tyson argues for increased investment in infrastructure, pointing out that the nation’s infrastructure will deteriorate quickly if spending is not increased. Tyson chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton and currently serves on President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. “Infrastructure spending, […]

What The Debt Ceiling Vote Means For Transportation

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 1, 2011 | No Comments

Yesterday, the House of Representatives took a “symbolic” vote on raising the debt ceiling without any “strings attached” – i.e., the trillion dollars worth of spending cuts the Republicans are insisting on before they’ll agree to raise the debt ceiling. The vote went how it was supposed to go: not a single Republican voted for […]

Study: Building Roads to Cure Congestion Is an Exercise in Futility

By Tanya Snyder | May 31, 2011 | 15 Comments

We hear it all the time: The road lobby insists that the only way to reduce mind-numbing traffic congestion on the roads they built is to build new roads. Federal funding gives huge blank checks to state DOTs, which tend to prioritize road building over transit, bridge maintenance or anything else. But mounting evidence suggests that […]

Five Media Myths That Perpetuate Car Culture

By Anne Lutz Fernandez and Catherine Lutz | May 23, 2011 | 64 Comments

Another day, another news story, another media outlet wielding an old saw like this one: high gas prices are a political problem for the president because Americans “love their cars.” American car culture, fed by everything from our sprawled out landscape to a daily bombardment of car ads, is kept alive by journalists’ use of […]

Brookings: Transit Access to Jobs Is the Missing Link

By Tanya Snyder | May 13, 2011 | 7 Comments

If you’re a middle-income person living in the Philadelphia metro area, there’s an 85 percent chance you live within three-quarters of a mile of a transit stop, and you probably have to wait about 12 minutes for a bus or train. But if you’re looking for work, beware: only 20 percent of the jobs in the […]

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