Comment by cogman10

I think this is the most frustrating part. You wouldn't even need to massively change out neighborhoods to get a huge benefit. If a developer built with district and heating planned, you could have an entire neighborhood heated and cooled without needed AC and heaters in every building. You could still have single family homes that are massively more efficient per unit.

The problem is that has to be planned almost from the beginning. Which shouldn't be a huge deal. My neighborhood had a water tower built at the same time the neighborhood was built. There's no reason district heating couldn't have occupied the lot right next to it.