Comment by pas
3 years ago
I also like the benefits of invidualistic cultures, but there's a cost to it too.
The US got this way because it was super-charged between pre-WWII and the dotcom boom. Both economically and culturally. The post-WWII high wages allowed the rise of suburbia, the Cold War induced WW3 scare led to the highway system, and so on.
The low-efficiency of it is taking its toll. (Sitting in traffic for hours each day, pollution, etc.)
Traffic is usually only a problem in major cities and that’s about the only good usecase for public transport. I don’t want to lose the amazing infrastructure we have for cars everywhere that isn’t a major urban center.
Traffic is one thing. Low-density sprawl itself is more costly. (More roads to maintain, more poles along roadsides, more distance to drive, more pipes, more wiring, every SFH is a big box with a lot more surface where heat exchange happens (and then folks want to keep it warm/cool), every backyard is one more sad lifeless walled garden to water and mow. It adds up.)
And I'm not saying there are no benefits, nor am I saying that the alternatives are so perfect people just somehow don't see it. (I'm saying let's quantify the costs and let people choose. For example I'd spend a lot more on soundproofing and a lot less on backyards and frown lawns, but mostly there's no such option. [Hence the big push for more permissive zoning/permitting/etc.])