Collective Conscious

Apple builds train sta­tions:

[A]s part of a deal with the city, Apple poured $4 mil­lion into ren­o­vat­ing the noto­ri­ously dilap­i­dated North/​Clybourn sta­tion on the Chicago Tran­sit Authority’s Red Line.

This is a bril­liant model for cap­i­tal­ism, and it’s been done before:

MTR Cor­po­ra­tion Lim­ited (MTRCL), became Hong Kong’s first rail com­pany to be pri­va­tised, mark­ing the begin­ning of the Hong Kong government’s ini­tia­tive to dis­solve its inter­ests in pub­lic utilities.

At a profit:

MTR Cor­po­ra­tion has always been reliant on devel­op­ing prop­er­ties next to rail­way sta­tions for its prof­its (although the rail lines are prof­itable them­selves); many recently built sta­tions are incor­po­rated into large hous­ing estates or shop­ping com­plexes.… In 2009 of a net profit of HK$7.3 bil­lion, MTR made HK$3.55 bil­lion from prop­erty and HK$2.12 bil­lion from trans­port operations.

Now, I imag­ine that the prof­itabil­ity of the rail lines is totally inter­de­pen­dent with the suc­cess of the prop­erty ven­tures, which include both hous­ing and retail devel­op­ments. I don’t nec­es­sar­ily think that the same model can apply in every US city; Hong Kong has a higher pop­u­la­tion den­sity than (almost) any Amer­i­can city. How­ever, I do think that invest­ment in rail sta­tions can be more than recu­per­ated by increased busi­ness traf­fic, and I think this is a great start in the right direction.

(Photo: erix!)