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That infrastructure is necessary for small towns. It would be much worse if they had to maintain expensive public transport in addition to all the roads, and it
by Noos 7y ago
That infrastructure is necessary for small towns. It would be much worse if they had to maintain expensive public transport in addition to all the roads, and it's not realistic to have density at that level I think. The only solution is to make the small town a large town.
Like you always will have a minimum level of sprawl, period. Density means you just have a lot of people packed into that minimum area. But you need to have services and things that can't be packed together, and they can't always be dense enough to work with limited transport relative to the town size.
- burlesona 7y agoYou can also have less infrastructure. Even the tiniest town could work fine on gravel roads with well and septic systems. The problem is usually when small towns try to build city-grade roads... which is pretty much what all of them do.
- rezonetheburbs 7y agoOr we could put the buildings closer together and not separate them by purpose. A mile of road goes much further if there's housing AND commercial that doesn't require an expensive, large automobile just to get from A to B.
- chongli 7y agoPeople who live in small towns don’t want to be huddled together. They buy houses in these towns because they want a large property with lots of space between them and their neighbours.
- closeparen 7y agoSmall towns and villages were pedestrian-scale for thousands of years. The new thing in suburbanization is the ability to live in a (poor imitation of a) small town and also commute to the city. Small towns themselves existed long before the automobile.