Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you want people off cars, you need to give them an alternative Never going to happen, outside of few dense city centers. Once an area is platted for detached single family homes and big box stores on stroads, the physical layout is incompatible with non car life, and hence you have to literally destroy everything and start over with narrow streets and smaller plots of land. The expense of this is not going to wi…
> Once an area is platted for detached single family homes and big box stores on stroads, the physical layout is incompatible with non car life, and hence you have to literally destroy everything and start over with narrow streets and smaller plots of land. Not really. Repave the roads to make them slimmer, use the space gained to provide elevated sidewalks and bike lanes so people can see it with their own eyes that…
And you can’t just repave roads, there are utilities and sewer that needs to be moved, and that’s the small problem. The big problem is facing the outcry of very active voters for reducing their road space and making their commutes even a minute longer.
And if all the homes around this repaved area are detached homes with garages in 0.1+ acre lots, you will never have the density of customers to support businesses.
It kind of has to start at a city center and slowly, very slowly spread outward. But as soon as you hit the higher end suburbs with bigger plats, that’s where any of that high density hope stops, because the political will simply isn’t going to be there. Look at any US city and you will see the “trendy” or “hipster” or whatever areas with a few restaurants and whatever in a small walkable area are all in areas with postage stamp houses in tiny lots.
