> With self-driving cars on the horizon, I think the suburbs might go through some type of re-birth. Suburban sprawl. I have several concerns with that. In pla

> With self-driving cars on the horizon, I think the suburbs might go through some type of re-birth. Suburban sprawl. I have several concerns with that. In places like San Francisco, there is no space to sprawl. It’s healthier for kids to use physical activity to move around. Only 7 miles from the office? When everybody goes to the suburbs, typical commuting distances are measured in the dozens of, or even over 100, miles. But I haven’t seen an answer to the concern about economic sustainability. The tax revenues from the properties have not been high enough to maintain the infrastructure, and likely cannot be high enough with middle-class people living there. I can imagine Donald Trump, how would he solve it? Hire contractors to rebuild the infrastructure and then threaten to sue them when they present the bill? That’s how he built his own properties. I don’t think it will work for the rest of the nation. http://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ http://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ Even in mildly dense areas like San Francisco, revenues do not cover maintenance. The BART district just passed bonds to rebuild the tracks, but we haven’t finished paying off the bonds to construct the tracks. This entire region needs to become dramatically more dense, preferably gradually over the last 50 years, but now we might finally have the political will to do it; just so we can afford to maintain the infrastructure.