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this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

in general, public transport before world war II was generally privately owned. it was a business, like railroads had been since the start of the industrial age. nobody liked the privately owned monopolies that owned public transit. 2/

basically, these monopolies dominated metro areas, because they weren't just the transport monopoly. in la, oakland and miami, the train company was the biggest real estate developer. in atlanta, new jersey and new orleans, they were the power company. 3/

these monopolies were hilariously corrupt as well, and they had few friends. henry huntington (of LA's red cars), or charles yerkes (of the chicago eleveated) were as detested as bezos and zuckerberg were today. 4/

this is probably comparing lemons to limes - but in both Hong Kong and Japan the private train companies were also real estate developers, and yet didn't seem to generate the animus that the US transit companies did. Is this accurate? (or is the question entirely outside of your wheelhouse?)

They're fundamentally different models. The MTR is a state-owned enterprise that doubles as a real estate developer. Japan has multiple competing, privately-owned rail companies that double as real estate developers.

Isn’t the increase in real estate values a positive externality from the transport network [so like anti-pollution]? In which case, isn’t it legitimate for operators to benefit from that [‘internalising the externality‘] - and shouldn’t that give them incentives to reduce transit charges?