Steve Mynott wrote: > In the UK at least railway stations tend to have been built in the ugly > parts of towns for good reason -- simply because land is a lot cheaper in > the low rent parts of town. > > Also railways stations and the associated cheap hotels with a large > transient population tend to attract undesirables such as drug dealers, > muggers and hookers and the sort of thing which pushs the value of your > house down and nice middle class people don't want on their doorstep. > > The people in richer areas tend to have more political clout and more > effectively oppose development of this sort.
Actually, in most places in UK, the railways precede the development of the town. So the industry & cheap areas follow rail, rather than vice versa. What you say is often true about new road building though. Everyone wants big roads a couple of miles away - no-one wants them on their doorstep. That's how Labour took over London in the 1970s - the old Tory GLC committed political suicide by road-building. Roads do not make votes. Of course, what /should/ happen is that the people who need the roads pay the people whose towns they go through...