Here’s a grocery store. It’s in downtown Little Rock (pop 204k).
Bet you anything you like all that cardboard got hauled away in an 18 wheeler (or a recycling truck).
To be clear (and reitierate) I’m not talking about heavily urbanized places, I’m talking about moderately urbanized places (which there are a lot more of). Converting a few inner city blocks in super dense cities is entirely meaningless in terms of helping the environment. For a solution/change to be useful, it will need to have wider applicability (to the majority of cities, which have <1m pop).
I’m talking about moderately urbanized places (which there are a lot more of).
Such places exist as a direct consequence of car culture. Their existence is not a universal constant; they can and must be turned into heavily urbanized areas.
Their existence is far more constant than heavily urbanized areas.
Certainly not. Moderately urbanized areas are a historical footnote. They came into existence less than a century ago, with the emergence of automobilism and cheap fuel.
Heavily urbanized areas have existed for millenia.
This is highly unrealistic. Most people do not want to be packed in tighter with other people, they want more space not less.
The alternative is that they stop existing altogether when personal automobiles become too expensive for the average consumer to own and operate.
Most people do not want to be packed in tighter with other people,
There are more people that do than you would think. Young people that are tired of being forced to live the antisocial lifestyle inherent to suburbia. People that recognize they don’t need all that much space or material things, that don’t mind sharing their outdoor green spaces with the public in exchange for not having to maintain it and having access to much more diverse businesses and entertainment, but cant afford to move to a big city because the demand for housing in them far outweighs the supply.
Why do you think American cities are so expensive to live in, anyways? It can’t be because nobody wants to live in them.
There are only a handful of cities around the country with tax revenue and infrastructure that hasn’t been wholly cannibalized by surrounding suburbs, as suburban infrastructure simply cannot fully support itself. Suburbs frequently must dip into revenue from areas with more density, and mixed use zoning that is more supportive of small businesses and takes more efficient advantage of sales tax revenue. The roads that all those cars and big box stores and winding neighborhoods rely on don’t fix themselves, you know, and that certainly is not a cheap task. Roads that were literally paved in the middle of cities over entire city blocks and still divide them to this day. That is why our cities have largely shrunk since the 50s, not some universal american attitude towards density.
148 E 17th St https://maps.app.goo.gl/a3wp7u1spEN4Vtjm7
Here’s a grocery store. It’s in downtown Little Rock (pop 204k).
Bet you anything you like all that cardboard got hauled away in an 18 wheeler (or a recycling truck).
To be clear (and reitierate) I’m not talking about heavily urbanized places, I’m talking about moderately urbanized places (which there are a lot more of). Converting a few inner city blocks in super dense cities is entirely meaningless in terms of helping the environment. For a solution/change to be useful, it will need to have wider applicability (to the majority of cities, which have <1m pop).
Such places exist as a direct consequence of car culture. Their existence is not a universal constant; they can and must be turned into heavily urbanized areas.
Their existence is far more constant than heavily urbanized areas.
This is highly unrealistic. Most people do not want to be packed in tighter with other people, they want more space not less.
Certainly not. Moderately urbanized areas are a historical footnote. They came into existence less than a century ago, with the emergence of automobilism and cheap fuel.
Heavily urbanized areas have existed for millenia.
The alternative is that they stop existing altogether when personal automobiles become too expensive for the average consumer to own and operate.
There are more people that do than you would think. Young people that are tired of being forced to live the antisocial lifestyle inherent to suburbia. People that recognize they don’t need all that much space or material things, that don’t mind sharing their outdoor green spaces with the public in exchange for not having to maintain it and having access to much more diverse businesses and entertainment, but cant afford to move to a big city because the demand for housing in them far outweighs the supply.
Why do you think American cities are so expensive to live in, anyways? It can’t be because nobody wants to live in them.
There are only a handful of cities around the country with tax revenue and infrastructure that hasn’t been wholly cannibalized by surrounding suburbs, as suburban infrastructure simply cannot fully support itself. Suburbs frequently must dip into revenue from areas with more density, and mixed use zoning that is more supportive of small businesses and takes more efficient advantage of sales tax revenue. The roads that all those cars and big box stores and winding neighborhoods rely on don’t fix themselves, you know, and that certainly is not a cheap task. Roads that were literally paved in the middle of cities over entire city blocks and still divide them to this day. That is why our cities have largely shrunk since the 50s, not some universal american attitude towards density.