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I share a smaley's sense that one has to look at this from (at least two) perspectives, one is that things have been getting somewhat better, the other is that our population is still not being enough attention to long-run considerations.   At the same time, I have some sense that there must be forces operating here that are bigger and more pervasive than those mentioned so far.  The United States is far from the only location in the world with citiies over run by vehicles and vehicle exhaust problems.  What accounts for the widespread nature of these problems?