In his study of nineteenth-century urban development, historian Marcus Thorne asserted that the deployment of electric streetcar lines was the primary catalyst for residential suburbanization. Thorne reasoned that by significantly decreasing travel times to central business districts, streetcars enabled workers to reside outside urban cores. However, recent demographic analyses challenge Thorne's view, contending that real estate developers actively financed streetcar construction primarily to serve housing subdivisions that had already been planned and capitalized. Consequently, these analysts argue, land speculation and developer initiative, rather than transit infrastructure itself, were the true drivers of spatial expansion.
Which of the following, if true, would most undermine the demographic analysts' critique of Thorne's thesis?
- Municipal regulations strictly prohibited real estate developers from constructing housing subdivisions until electric streetcar lines had been built and made fully operational in those areas.Cevap
- BElectric streetcar fares were substantially lower than the fares charged by horse-drawn omnibus services operating within urban cores.
- CReal estate developers in the late nineteenth century frequently suffered severe financial losses when investing in public transit projects.
- DSuburban residents surveyed during the late nineteenth century consistently reported that proximity to streetcar lines was their main reason for moving.
- EThe passage author cites developer financing to prove that electric streetcars failed to reduce commute times into urban centers.