I'm sure there's 1000 economic and social reasons they can't be done, but damn if it doesn't sound good.
Boston's inner suburbs are full of this sort of stuff - walkable stores, small business and light industry, 2-5 story buildings for housing. And it all feels a lot like the old quarters of many European cities.
Part of the change is building materials and cars, I suppose - what was obvious in 1850 now has to be planned to outcompete highrises and cars-first layouts. But an awful lot of it is just not outlawing what people already do if you let them; Boston's livable old suburbs are basically all illegal today.
Points 1, 2, and 4 remind me of nothing so much as Abbey's stance on protecting the national parks: avoiding regulation via personal responsibility and barriers on idle, disinteresting consumption.
As I remember, his plan for the Grand Canyon was to put the last parking lot 5+ miles from the Canyon, with a bus line and a fleet of bicycles. You bike in (or take the bus, iff you've got a health reason not to bike), see the Canyon, then take a bus back out. No Canyon-side parking, less litter, no tourists seeking 5 minutes of photos, and no hucksters selling tickets for glass bridges or anything else. And yes, I seem to remember he wanted to keep names like "Hell's Half Mile" on everything possible, the better to limit demand.
A bit exclusionary, maybe, but sort of a nice vision given what we've got instead. (As far as I know, the park that came closest is Zion, and it's definitely better for having done so.)
This would put a stop to hordes of new residents from trashing places because it would give the existing residents time to react before the newcomers dominate local politics.
Experience/time considered in all sorts of contexts. The opinion of someone who's been doing something for years is more meaningful than that of someone who hasn't. Why don't we apply that to political representation. People who have been living somewhere for awhile probably have a better opinion on the future direction of that place than people who haven't.
1. Rip up all city streets with jackhammers and sod the streets at once.... All public movement would be by foot and a fleet of bicycles, maintained by the city police force.
2. Change the name 'Aspen', by public referendum, to 'Fat City'. This would prevent greedheads, land-rapers and other human jackals from capitalizing on the name 'Aspen'.... These swine should be fucked, broken, and driven across the land.
3. Drug Sales must be controlled. My first act as Sheriff will be to install, on the courthouse lawn, a bastinado platform and a set of stocks in order to punish dishonest dope dealers in a proper public fashion. Each year these dealers cheat millions of people out of millions of dollars.... it will be the general philosophy of the Sheriff’s office that no drug worth taking should be sold for money.
4. Hunting and fishing should be forbidden to all non-residents, with the exception of those who can obtain the signed endorsement of a resident- who will then be legally responsible for any violation or abuse committed by the non-resident he has ‘signed for’…. By this approach-making hundreds or even thousands of individuals personally responsible for protecting the animals, fish and birds who live here-we would create a sort of de facto game preserve, without the harsh restrictions that will necessarily be forced on us if these blood-thirsty geeks keep swarming in here each autumn to shoot everything they see.
5. The Sheriff and his Deputies should never be armed in public. Every urban riot, shoot-out and blood-bath (involving guns) in recent memory has been set off by some trigger-happy cop in a fear frenzy.
6. It will be the policy of the Sheriff’s office savagely to harass all those engaged in any form of land-rape.