Yesterday I was walking through my neighborhood when I saw a film crew and a gaggle of models fussing about a sidewalk cafe. I stuck around to see what was going on - I like watching the film-making process - and suddenly one pretty young thing stripped down to her panties and started strutting, in a quite attractive topless fashion, toward a bunch of Steadicams. Made my week.
Let’s see you find THAT in the suburbs.
Hey, you want to live in a city? Fine with me. I’m just defending suburbs, since cities are not for me.
I’ve pointed out that walkable suburbs are possible and are nice to have.
Speaking of roads, I’m always scratching my head when people point to the Federal Highway System as an example of good government that nobody could possibly disagree with. I’m thinking “what if we never built that”? Maybe there would be privately owned light rail over the whole country or something else like everyone working from home as soon as the internet was invented.
There was widespread privately owned light rail in several states in the early 20th century. It failed way before the federal government was involved in roads. Just the existence of cars was enough to pound the last nails in.
Which is why I think people are going to stop equating the American Dream with buying a house. Houses are great when you can count on having a job in the same place for decades. But as you say, this simply isn’t the case anymore. It doesn’t make sense for a someone to buy a house when in a year or two, they may be laid off, transferred, or underemployed.
Especially now that people are really starting to appreciate the value of leisure time. Every minute on the road is one minute less that you can devote to working out at the gym, playing computer games, or watching “Orange is the New Black”.
Here’s the grocery store that’s a block from my house (and 4 blocks from the basketball stadium, 8 from the football stadium, and within 5 or 6 blocks at least 6 museums). There’s no bullet proof glass, but the upstairs has a few hundred nice bottles of wine to choose from.
Here (click on street view to get a look).
Also, we don’t get snow 
The next generation of automobiles is going to make a lot of the arguments in this thread superfluous.
It will never be efficient to sit a single person in a quarter ton if steel and propel them for forty miles just to get to work.
Well shit, if you have the inside info when the damned flying cars are finally coming out, don’t just tease us with it. Spit it out man!!
It could make things much worse, just like cheap gas did in the 90s. It could easily result in more sprawl, more traffic, more sprawling communities that have high cost to build and maintain and are essentially supported by taxpayers who don’t live in the sprawl.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/05/quantifying-cost-sprawl/5664/
Maybe it’s just because I live in such a small country, but to me, suburbs seem like a waste of perfectly good nature or farmland.
And another thing puff – it’s about the Revolution, man, the Revolution! You can’t put up a barricade on effin’ Cricket Crap Creek Lane, man! Who’s even gonna notice?!
Here we have no shortage of either. In fact, a lot of land formerly under cultivation, if not developed for 'burbs, has been simply abandoned and allowed to lapse back into forest or whatever.
Don’t forget, a lot of immigrants need no one to teach them about staid middle-class family life. Depends on their culture of origin. (And sometimes circumstances of departure. I recall reading in Michael Barone’s The New Americans that in 19th Century America, there were a lot of Irish prostitutes and practically no Italian prostitutes. That was not because Italian women are any chaster, it was because the Italians came over in families and the Irish as atomized famine-refugees with no family support networks.)
Aren’t local political machines pretty much a thing of the past in America?
Railroad right-of-ways are good for . . . well, railroad right-of-ways. Also for biking and hiking trails. (Railroad engineers and cyclists have similar ideas about what constitutes a reasonable gradient.)
I’m just an ordinary average guy
My friends are all boring, and so am I
We’re just ordinary, average guys
-Joe Walsh
You have not been paying attention. There are objections to sprawl, environmental objections as well as cultural and political and economic and esthetic and quality-of-life, that applied before we knew about limited petroleum supplies or greenhouse-gas emissions, and will still apply if those problems are solved or mitigated.
My grocery bill has dropped significantly since going to delivery. I stick to my list, cut out impulse junk food, and can compare prices and specials instantly.
Of course, delivery, like in-person shopping, is more fuel-efficient and otherwise efficient within a compact and mixed-use neighborhood.
Yo are very correct in your assessment-the cities declined because the people who could have prevented the decay moved out. I lived in a decaying city for years-my local alderman did nothing. I finally voted with my feet. All of the big cities that are in trouble (Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, etc.) have three things in common:
-a disinterested, low-information electorate
-long-term domination by one party
-extremely high taxes
I agree with this sentiment. Having meaningful destinations to walk to encourages one to get out and do it. Sure, you could take the car and get to the grocery store in four minutes (and obviously a car may be essential depending on how much you plan to buy), but if the walk is enjoyable you don’t mind the time it takes. For one thing, I can’t use my earbuds if I’m driving, but when I’m on foot I can.
Recently my insurance plan invited me to sign up for their mail order pharmacy service–most scripts filled within 7 days and refills within two. I considered: is the pharmacy still .2 miles away from my house? Yes? Then why bother?