Wow. Some of the statements are shockers!

First, it's shocking to point out that housing and employment densities are falling and then use it as a testament to the popularity of the car... It is only because of cars, the subsidization of their fuel, of their infrastructure and their societal/environmental impacts, as well as the subsidization of development (through home mortgage tax deductions) that the density of communities is falling. Without these huge subsidies, dense development (and the reduced transporation costs for each individual associated with it) would have been favored in the market; look at Europe for an illustration of this (as it developed largely before the invention, and subsequent subsidization, of the automobile).

And what is especially perverse about all this is that it creates a amplified feedback effect that furthur promotes low density development. The decreasing density caused by policies that promote the automobile make cars even more necessary for people to move around!

And this all gets at one underlying issue: demand in an economy is structured by a lot of external considerations and the choices afforded to consumers - things outside of that individual decision maker's personal sphere of influence. True "consumer sovereignty" can never really exist in the real world because of the fact that people make choices from a set of options that they have no control over and because my choices as a consumer affect others in ways that I do not have to pay for (aka negative externalities).

Without having a true choice of transportation options-or by not accurately reflecting the costs of those choices, as happens with the automobile- you cannot say anything meaningful about people's true preferences.

The fact that one mode of transportation is demanded a lot, when it is the transportation mode that modern development was modeled around and that tax and economic policy hugely subsidized and continues to subsidize, does not mean a hell of a lot.

What people demand is shaped by the context in which they make those decisions, and that context is often determined by historical situations/decisions or policy choices outside of their control.

I find it funny that conservatives, supply-siders in nearly all other economic debates, on this issue like to talk demand instead of supply.

True to form, conservatives HATE government intervention and subsidies, unless they are subsidies and interventions that they like and (usually) personally benefit from - a la auto subsidies, corporate welfare, Halliburton contracts, stopping boys from kissing and Terry Schiavo.