3 ms·

Historically that hasn't been true, has it? It's only been true since we decided to stop building housing or transport infrastructure in cities

• projektfu 6y ago
  The suburban development plan becomes really onerous when cities sprawled once and then sprawled again a couple more times. The first round of widely-spaced single-family homes with no retail or commercial space causes a buffer that can't be expanded into by the inner metro without a herculean effort or complete failure of the neighborhood. The second ring usually becomes poor because the third ring is where the wealthy are moving into the big houses. That third ring looks great, now, but eventually it will look run down as well and will either be abandoned or will need a ton of money to replace it. The post-war American development plan is what it is. Nevertheless, we need to strategize to continue developing our cities into places that are worth living in. I think Atlanta has been doing a good job, but it bumps against these zoning constraints a lot. With more people understanding the overall strategy, and with some projects like the BeltLine showing how desirable new approaches can be, we will hopefully see substantial improvement in our lifetime. And by that, I mean that people will really appreciate where they live, and have healthier and happier lives, not that it meets some goal of urbanization or what not.