For the discerning reader: every single expert disagrees vociferously with this take.
The economics simply do not work to make this sustainable. Let's not forget how expensive basic infrastructure is just because it's normalized. Water/power/sewer/trash/roads/lighting is a massive expense that just keeps getting more expensive, not to mention that you have to factor in maintenance costs.
> For the discerning reader: every single expert disagrees vociferously with this take.
They actually don't. Go on, try to find anything in my words that is factually incorrect.
I'll wait.
A simple verifiable fact of life: density increases do not result in cheaper housing prices. Scholarly literature is unambiguous on that point. The best positive result for new construction was a one-time 5-9% decrease in _rents_ immediately near the new construction.
Experts, who made their career in pushing urbanism, try to dance around that point.
This has never made sense to me because it is essentially arguing that, say, the fifty year period between 1960 and 2010 doesn't exist.
I don't care if maintaining large roads and power and water is expensive. I'm happy to pay for the increased quality of life.
I don't see how this is unsustainable at all. It might need higher taxes or some other way of ensuring that ongoing maintenance actually gets paid for. So what?
If you've heard any hubbub about "infrastructure bills" in the past couple decades that's because a lot of the maintenance for the infrastructure we built then is coming due. Things age. But money today is not as cheap as it was in the good old days. So we bear heavier costs on more widespread failures. Our age of unbridled growth is coming to an end.
Seems like a bastardization of the concept of "planned". Obviously pricing and subsidies come into play but that doesn't prevent the result from still being a market-based approach.
You will not find a single capitalist who doesn't do some market research to determine a price for their product. Utilities are largely the same.
I speak 5 languages and lived in many countries, and I got my first car at the age of 30.
Here's another fact: not a single large transit-rich city in the _world_ has faster commutes than the US average. And car-rich Greater Houston Area has faster commutes than ANY other megalopolis.
Not even the slightest bit, the odds of the parent's sole life experience being "car infested suburbia" is ~1.0 Chalk it up to narrow context us centric hip view myopia.
The fix? Don't do dense cities. 80-85% of the US population prefers single-family houses to apartments.
We need to promote remote work and BUILD NEW SPARSE HOUSING. Do not do the nonsense "upzoning", instead build new suburbs.
Remote work can be promoted by giving tax breaks for remote positions or by taxing dense office space.