the past, it is important

[walkitout]

Location 1829-35: "The only reason Manhattan works, the only reason this place can be functional, is because of the mass transit infrastructure that so brilliantly underpins the whole island."

Yes, the mass transit, it is lovely. And it has been there a while. But not that long. Currently, Manhattan's population (as an island) is around 1.6 million. That's a lot of people in not very much space. But I read Luc Sante's entertaining _Low Life_. I know a lot of people have been in Manhattan for a long time. So many people, in fact, that it is actually kind of difficult to wrap one's brain around. Steiner didn't even try. If he had, he would have found this entry at wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City#Historic_population_figures

In 1900, there were 1.8 million people (as in, _more_ than now) in the same area. I'm reasonably certain that while _some_ of the current mass transit options were in place in 1900, it was nothing like as extensive as it is now.

I suppose the counter argument would be that Manhattan in 1900 was not "functional", but I think at that point, we might be into value judgments.

Comments

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

But even these days, Manhattan is basically made up of little neighborhoods. My sister used to live on the Upper East Side (she was a postdoc at the Rockefeller Institute and lived in a building that had a ton of RI folks), and said that it would be easy to spend months at a time never going more than a few blocks in any direction, if you chose to do so. I bet a lot more people lived that way in 1900.

yes! all about the feet

[walkitout]

I always think it's a little sad when people talk about Manhattan and people not needing cars because there's the subway/buses/cabs when in fact, it's mostly about everything you need being within easy walking distance.

Re: yes! all about the feet

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

It is true that the subway et al. are excellent fallbacks, if you do happen to want to get further and faster than it's easy to do on one's feet. But Manhattan is only something like 2.5 by 12.5 miles; I've traversed large sections of it on foot myself as a tourist, and I haven't even spent huge amounts of time there.

Perfect electric car territory, too, of course.