> buy a bike "Same but pedal powered" isn't really all that much different than "same but electric" though. As the contentiousness in the replies clearly shows

> buy a bike "Same but pedal powered" isn't really all that much different than "same but electric" though. As the contentiousness in the replies clearly shows, doing just that without addressing the fundamental issues with how we manage various kinds of consumption - especially but not only of land - simply will not work. Many people will not go along. Ever. Some of the alternatives create their own problems, or wouldn't make a significant dent in climate change, pollution, etc. The 90% solution for young, childless, non-disabled, crowding-tolerant people is nowhere near the 100% solution (or at least 99.9% solution) that's really needed. "Rethink the whole design" (your words) means more than "move to the city and ride a bike" leaving cities and bikes and practically everything else almost entirely as they are or even making things worse. Hint: cities are prone to all sorts of problems from supply to waste, from crime to disease, even at current sizes and densities let alone those which would result from everyone following that prescription. When we think about reclaiming all that land wasted by suburban sprawl, a better solution might be making small- to medium-size town centers more nearly self sufficient (i.e. living + working + shopping + recreation and food supply around the edges). Thousands of those, well connected to one another, would be far better than dystopian dozens of NYC/LA/Beijing clones with no human habitation in between. It's a larger change, but both more likely to appeal and more likely to make a difference.