Comment by solatic
8 hours ago
> All kinds of places overcome these things
Yes, but it requires political will. America is rather characteristic (I want to say unique, but that's probably false) in its lack of political will to increase density anywhere that isn't already dense. Like I said, you're not going to suddenly see 50 story towers blanket San Francisco. This is why, as cities develop suburban and exurban sprawl to the point where the distances no longer become feasible to commute in an automobile, we need to develop new cities, with a strategy for reducing commute time between them (i.e. high speed rail).
> some level of new tech
I mean... it's not going to be datacenters, seeing as how they require a minimum of people and lots of power generation. So unless you have a suggestion, I would go with tried-and-proven approaches, yeah? A master plan for high-speed rail, with the budget to boot, is already a big spend of the innovation budget, the rest should be boring choices, right?
Nah I think we need to go big. This will require a big investment and we won't recoup it unless a big part of it is redoubling our high-end manufacturing and agriculture. This is stuff like robotics, sensors/chips/solar panels/batteries, biopharmaceuticals, modular housing, sustainable farming and textiles, etc.