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You're describing a pleasant low population density situation which is a nice romantic fantasy a lot of people long for. I don't blame people for wanting that,

by jck 5y ago

You're describing a pleasant low population density situation which is a nice romantic fantasy a lot of people long for. I don't blame people for wanting that, but you must realize that it is the exact mentality that leads to suburban sprawl. I think on aggregate, that is more expensive (financially and environmentally) than high density cities. Take all the infrastructure which needs to be built out for these small cities (roads, electric grid etc) which serve a very small number of people and now imagine if everyone lived like that and multiply that cost with building out this infrastructure for a many many small cities. Building 30 small idyllic villages instead of one hong Kong would end up having a larger environmental impact.

ericmay 5y ago
You’re thinking of something I’m not describing “idyllic villages”. Instead I’m describing modern towns and cities that exist all over the world and in Europe in particular where they were built before cars existed. They have low emissions, everyone walks or rides a bike, and they have regular train service. > Building 30 small idyllic villages instead of one hong Kong would end up having a larger environmental impact. Depends. If they’re American-style sure. If they are (again these are your words idyllic villages) then I don’t see much impact. You just walk around the small village. Maybe a farmer comes buy and sells apples or whatever. These scale and the evidence is in the city, where you can see companies will create multiple instances of their stores because there’s an upper limit on the number of people served. Also for a right sized city 50,000+ you don’t need massive infrastructure investments which require massive specialization, massive costs, and so forth. They only exist because there are too many people. Also for items like roads those are fine. You can walk or ride your bike in them. Maybe they’re even multi-purpose. Most wouldn’t be driving cars on them for any reason though which is a big inefficiency.

by jck 5y ago

ericmay 5y ago

You’re thinking of something I’m not describing “idyllic villages”. Instead I’m describing modern towns and cities that exist all over the world and in Europe in particular where they were built before cars existed. They have low emissions, everyone walks or rides a bike, and they have regular train service. > Building 30 small idyllic villages instead of one hong Kong would end up having a larger environmental impact. Depends. If they’re American-style sure. If they are (again these are your words idyllic villages) then I don’t see much impact. You just walk around the small village. Maybe a farmer comes buy and sells apples or whatever. These scale and the evidence is in the city, where you can see companies will create multiple instances of their stores because there’s an upper limit on the number of people served. Also for a right sized city 50,000+ you don’t need massive infrastructure investments which require massive specialization, massive costs, and so forth. They only exist because there are too many people. Also for items like roads those are fine. You can walk or ride your bike in them. Maybe they’re even multi-purpose. Most wouldn’t be driving cars on them for any reason though which is a big inefficiency.