In a Western context with our property situation perhaps but look at Japan. 91% of the population lives in an urban area and even in the most desirable metropolis Tokyo it is relatively affordable: https://www.curbed.com/2017/2/3/14496248/tokyo-real-estate-a...

Not every city in the world has to be like New York or San Francisco. Cars should be banned (more or less) in cities. And it should viable for someone to live in a city if they so choose or in a rural area with a car if they so choose. We're failing on both fronts really in America...

It's expensive to live in a city that's 40% asphalt to move cars around and park cars in. You basically need to pay 40% more for the same living space, since you don't really pay for the moving space. Great way for car companies to force externalities onto everyone else. Don't like cars? "Oh well, you're paying for the road and parking anyway. You can't beat the problem, so you may as well join it."

> You basically need to pay 40% more for the same living space, since you don't really pay for the moving space.

That would be the case if constructing and maintaining roads would be as expensive as constructing and maintaining housing, which I don't think is true.

If induced demand is a problem for cars, might it not be a problem for cities? A higher potential density will lead to a higher density.

In Portland, OR, there is substantial transit infrastructure, but the results are a bit mixed. Everyone agrees that it is easy to get around most of the city, but its suburban areas tend to experience the same low-density/high-prices phenomenon that is seen in other coastal cities.

Why? Last I read on the topic, it's because the market is factoring in the potential value of each parcel when built out according to what infrastructure dictates, but without actually building it. So small garages built 50 years ago are getting priced like 8-story apartments.

Actually building to meet the demand is the thing that lowers the rent, and that comes down to raising the inflow of building permits each year. That's the part that has to be solved.

One of the things that Japan does besides having a lot of trains is a standardized national zoning code that makes planning and permitting much more straightforward. Building in Japan is much more of a commodity, and the prices reflect that. And an example of relaxed building rules in the USA is Houston, which has long had a cool yet expanding housing market, but a car-centric one.

The effect of the combination of the trains and low regulation in Japan is that you get dense/cheap cities - and with fast trains, all of Japan acts as a "suburb of Tokyo". Trains and regulation gives you PDX. Cars and low regulation and you get Houston. Cars and regulation and you get regional SF.

By comparing these different outcomes something like a coherent theory occurs: population in the industrial era always tends to urbanize. If we restrict the flow in some way, we get high priced urban areas; the specifics of infrastructure choices are just one factor, and not necessarily the biggest. But population growth itself is a national issue and comes from other demographic factors(immigration, childbearing rates, death rates). And although Tokyo still gets bigger, which is indicative that urbanization isn't "done", Japan as a whole is on the decline.

People appear not be a space filling curve anymore. It looked that way prior to the Industrial Revolution and the advent of Birth Control. But it doesn't look like people will infinitely fill all space available to them anymore. Perhaps it's because we're running out of space (artificially, by not building) in places where there's till opportunity. But I'm not sure we have convincing evidence of that. We do have evidence that people aren't wildly reproducing in almost every advanced economy, though.

The car free concept is strictly about city centers, and has nothing to do with those who live in the suburbs or rural areas. Absolutely no one is advocating removing cars from those areas. This has nothing to do with elitism, and everything to do with optimizing transportation for different environments. Proponents usually advocate for better metro transit networks, which would benefit those who live outside the city centers.

>Absolutely no one is advocating removing cars from those areas.

You'll find plenty of people here who will be happy to argue that living outside of dense cities is unsustainable and has to end. They're wrong. But it's their opinion.

I engage pretty heavily with civic & transit planning, and I've never heard someone argue that in my entire life. If that is an opinion held by some, they are certainly a minuscule minority.

Here you go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21764675

On this very thread.

Mind you, I would agree that it's an opinion held by a minuscule minority. It's also wrong. But it's out there. It's even here on HN.

Search HN comments for something like "unsustainable suburban" and you'll find plenty of hits from people arguing basically that suburbs have to (somehow) end.