The US is car dependent specifically because of the choice the government made to move people out of cities. Aggressively subsidizing suburban development and i

The US is car dependent specifically because of the choice the government made to move people out of cities. Aggressively subsidizing suburban development and infrastructure was an intentional top down choice. No market would have ever supported the bond backed creep of development out further and further into the suburbs. Precisely what you see now are wealthy cities (outside of the sunbelt) tearing down old and crumbling urban highways like the Embarcadero in SF and poor cities like Baltimore being stuck with 83 which it can neither afford to maintain or tear down. In the case of 83 it cut right through a thriving working class neighborhood called Old Town which is now abandoned and little more than a skid row. Whereas the neighborhoods around the water that were slated for razing for highway construction but spared are the most thriving neighborhoods in the city. Urban highways were always a giveaway to people who fled to the suburbs at the expense of people who did not. They involved monstrous acts of government takings through imminent domain and eradicated the wealth of generations of people who had their property stolen with only token compensation. And now in the case of Baltimore, no only were multiple neighborhoods destroyed, but the schools that remained near the highway have worse performance which has been repeatedly linked to air pollution from the highway. My better idea was for the government not to steal peoples' homes and businesses to build highways for people it also subsidized to live elsewhere. This create a double drag on the economies of American cities by depriving them of tax revenue and destroying economic activity.