You don't need that giant dense buildings for that and you don't need "lots" of cafes etc. 3-4 in a walking distance is better than nothing like in average subu

You don't need that giant dense buildings for that and you don't need "lots" of cafes etc. 3-4 in a walking distance is better than nothing like in average suburbs. There's thousands people living in 20 minute walk radius and if you add bike ride here, it's even more. Put cluster of reasonably large apartment buildings as a core, cafes and shops in this area and individual homes sprawl around it. I'm sure we can find at what scale economics does work.