Urban Design and police has become a kafkaesque mess. It has become near impossible to summon the political will to actually build something livable. Developmen

Urban Design and police has become a kafkaesque mess. It has become near impossible to summon the political will to actually build something livable. Developments generally lean towards familiar and easy, instead of building anything interesting. Tragically, in many parts of the world, one of 3 types of plans fall in the easy+familiar domain. You have the grossly inefficient suburbs of the US, lifeless concrete planned cities of communist fame and wild-best of haphazard urban densification as seen in Indian cities like Bangalore. What's even worse, is that the average consumer is woefully under-equipped to recognize problems with this system until it is too late. It isn't until their kids start growing up that they realize how dead the suburb feels, and how the car dependence relegates one of the parents to a soccer mom nanny. Why it takes 2 hours to get to anywhere in Bangalore or why the incredibly dense concrete jungle feels spiritually dead despite how hard you try to fix it. Years of brainwashing towards the American dream and a tall condo with a view, really do not help consumers make informed decisions either. Not like contractors do user-studies anyways, but still. Funny thing is, these problems are already solved in some capacity. City has been studied to death for millennia. It is no wonder that people in modern 1st world countries, pay good money to spend 1 week in European cities that have been "preserved" as they were. I am not even advocating for some replica of Copenhagen or Vienna (as much as I love biking). Strong towns[1] and Not-just-bikes[2] are evangelists of just two of many well thought out ways of building better cities. Even the much maligned Apple Park could have been amazing if not for Cupertino's parking minimum rules. Guess billionaires can only do so much. The plans are already there, what's lacking is political will. If billionaires is what it takes to break cities out of this terrible inertia, then so be it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em7nqDqQ8oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em7nqDqQ8oM [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ