Cities are growing again, don't kill them. I get the feeling that this was the author's semi-intellectual tantrum because he got cut off by a car when he was i

Cities are growing again, don't kill them. I get the feeling that this was the author's semi-intellectual tantrum because he got cut off by a car when he was in the bike lane. He comes in long on agenda and short on facts. For example, he says that trucks should pay for the damage they do to roads but he is completely ignoring the fact that they do. Diesel fuel is taxed so heavily specifically to compensate for the amount of damage big trucks cause to the roads. It's also why there are spot checks for un-taxed agricultural diesel. I see formerly crime ridden, low income neighborhoods being gentrified and young professionals are moving in. There are parts of the city where one could have bought a house for less than $50,000 ten years ago where the same house is going for over $200,000 today. You will ruin that trend and reverse that growth if you make it too difficult, inconvenient and expensive for people. I have chosen to live my life in such a way that car-free, urban living is just not going to happen. I can easily put my three children into my vehicle and go to the mall just to browse around and spend time together. I'm not loading three children onto a bus. I have a three bedroom house about 14 miles away from the center of the nearest urban area and it sits on 1/6 to 1/8 of an acre of land where I'm free to grow a garden, have a swimming pool and still pay less for my mortgage than I'd pay in rent for a three bedroom apartment in the city. There are a lot of people like me who will never live in the city and if you make it too inconvenient to travel into the city, we'll stop going. You will create more sprawl due to the fact that just because we don't go into the city for goods and services doesn't mean that we won't require them. We'll still need and want these things and someone will service those needs in a way that works for us. Automobiles are not going away. If you stop planning for and accommodating them, you are going to cause many more problems than you resolve.