Comment by zkmon
3 days ago
Being a large city should no longer be seen as a positive attribute. It just looks like a bigger wound in the middle of a forest and natural terrain. Packing millions of people into a vast paved area does no good. It socks all life from country due to concentration of work and services.
Early human settlements had an objective of collective strength against the predators, invaders and shared help for all problem. Cities no longer have these goals or characteristics. They exist only due to a vicious cycle of jobs and worker availability which propel each other because of each other.
Dense cities use up a lot less resources and land than the same number of people spread out in smaller cities or suburbs.
There's probably a point where that stops scaling. Is there any proof a city of 40 million uses less resources per capita than a city of 1 million? 40 cities of 1 million seems preferable because then you can actually get outside the city once in a while without it being 2+ hours of travel.
It is unclear what leaving the city quickly has to do scaling or resources per capita. You seem to value this; most big city dwellers do not.