If ever you needed and example of an “Elitist”, you would gather no better example than Professor Dan Carlson of the Evans School at the University of Washington.
After spending a portion of this article talking about how people should live closer to where they work because “It’s more efficient and it builds community in richer ways” we find that Professor Carlson, who works at the University of Washington, lives on Vashon Island.
The Puget Sound locals all probably just chuckled. For those of you outside the Seattle Metro area, you can use any internet based map program to search for “Vashon Island” and the “University of Washington”. Lets just say that the man has to take a boat to get to and fro (if I could figure out how to make google maps work like I want it to, I’d have just hooked you up, but I can’t).
He’s not exactly “building a sense of community” with his lifestyle, in my opinion.
Local blog Sound Politics has all the information about this member of city planning royalty, including a link to his web page, where they guy has links to his studies on “Transportation Management”.
Funny subject, in my opinion, especially considering this guys commute.
I know about Vashon Island, nice little elite place too: Average Income $95,513, Median Housing Value $284,243 — Where the hell do these evidently suburban “Housing Advocates” get-off always pushing for *other* people to be piled on top of each other, supposedly to make for a “richer” or “better” community. What a load of crap, and way too-easy for them to say since it doesn’t impact their lifestyle. Do they thing that it somehow brings out the “Gritty Urban Intellectual-Collectivist-gene”? I imagine they do think that. It’s like Palo Alto socialists in 94301…sheesh.
Check here for kewl Vashon zip-code (98070) statistics: http://65.39.85.13/google/default.htm
Plug in any zip-code.
How about this link for a Google Maps display of his route to work…
Estimate, 55.5 miles, and 2 hours 6 minutes travel time…
Do you suppose he takes public transit so he can have a “richer” commute experience? The comments at Sound Politics are priceless!