Comment by acuozzo
5 days ago
> That would be impossible in a suburban setting;
Not necessarily true. The "village center" idea Jim Rouse used in his design of Columbia, MD could be used to solve the problem.
All of these things are within walking distance if you live in Columbia's village of Wilde Lake (and, of course, your health insurance covers the primary care physicians in walking distance).
I'm guessing you're thinking of typical "stroad" suburbs, but alternatives are possible and do exist.
Unfortunately, the suburb has to be the product of planning like Columbia. Typical "emergent" suburbs turn into unwalkable ones.
The fact that alternative designs are possible is almost irrelevant, because the problem is that you don't get people to agree on the same things. You get one example of something like that and it never replicates.
If you want public health outcomes, actual scale, you get much better outcomes by not having that regulatory system at all.