Dick Spotswood: Misstep in plan to reduce Marin's carbon footprint - Marin Independent Journal

The state concluded that the best route toward achieving this end is to curtail auto usage by building high density housing near public transportation corridors.

This strategy is doomed to failure.

Planners dream that people will live so close to their jobs and shopping that they will travel by walking, biking or taking short bus rides. This delightful vision is pure fantasy concocted by bureaucrats who have little idea how real people make decisions about where they live and work.

We have so much suburban-centered driving because during the 1980s these same planners became convinced that the old suburb-to-city commute model was environmentally destructive.

They gradually succeeded.