Why it is exceedingly difficult to promote sustainable mobility in the United States of America

The headline on this Associated Press story says it all.

Before gasoline became a mere commodity, oil refinery and marketing companies spent a lot of money promoting their brand and products.

Because our economy is inextricably tied into oil production (as well as automobile manufacturing).

There is a great piece in Bloomberg Businessweek a few years back called "The Petro States of America," making this point.

In looking for the cite, I also came across this article, which drills down on the point a bit, "The U.S. has its own petro-states and petro-towns," Washington Post).

It discusses how states like Texas, Alaska, North Dakota and others are particularly dependent on tax revenues related to oil production.

Except for a few cities that have an urban design that prioritizes walking ("Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis," Peter Muller) and therefore transit and biking too, combined with a continued focus on centralizing to some extent employment centers, mostly the land use and transportation planning paradigm in the US prioritizes automobility.

Adding walking, biking, and transit to that mix is difficult and it is incredibly difficult for it to be successful because most every other planning decision privileges automobility.

Expecting sustainable mobility to be competitive in such situations is a losing proposition.