If it is indeed that much cheaper to start from scratch, we have the open land to do so. Housing prices might fall in the areas that are chosen for divestment, but if we can't afford it, it's unclear what other paths remain. I largely believe in Strong Town's thesis, but we can't make everything a 5+1 because there is too much underdeveloped land use to justify that level of density everywhere given the total population size. There certainly are plenty of areas where's it's economical to upzone, but in many areas it won't be.

What? We can't do 5+1 everywhere because first we need to litter every last bit of countryside with failed sprawling towns that were swallowed by their own maintenance costs?

That doesn't seem workable.

You can't do 5+1 on the current total land area occupied by low-density because you'd end up with far more housing than 330 million or so people need. You add that level of density to the core of small towns, then you have enough for everyone. That leaves a long tail of abandoned infrastructure in the areas that you're describing (rural/exurbs not picked for 5+1 upzoning).

The suburbs take a huge amount of land. If everyone lived in NYC-level of density, we could all fit in New Jersey. If we all lived in middle-missing housing level density, that amount of land is still far less than the total area of all the suburbs.

Oh... it sounds like you're saying the proposal is to actually convert all existing developed land to 5+1. I don't think that's anyone's proposal?

Upzoning does not mean you automatically get a building at maximum allowed density, it means you increase what is allowed and let the market decide what makes sense where. It would play out exactly as you describe.

I think the point is that not all the suburban sprawl will get converted to 5+1 so some of it's going to decay/devolve.

Ah, I see. Yeah. Undoing decades of malinvestment at the lowest levels of infrastructure is going to have some sharp edges.

You just have to densify existing towns and smaller cities, and go back to something more like the traditional model of small-scale urbanization. Density is more efficient than suburban sprawl.

No thank you. I would rather burn this country to the ground than deal with the noise of density.

Music. Street racing. 24/7 dog barking. Density is hell.

I live in one of top 20 densest municipalities in the US (Somerville MA) with 18k people per square mile, and none of those things are an issue here. You can have density without noise.

Having lived in Somerville I’m going to disagree on the “without noise”.

Sure it’s not like living next to Times Square but it’s far noisier than a neighborhood of single family homes.

No thanks, leaf blowers and other lawn care equipment is pretty damn noisy.

That and the crushing car dependency.

Sounds like it’s not for you. Great.

But a lot of people like it, so hey, good for them too!

To each his/her own.

It would be great if it could be "to each his/her own". Unfortunately, throughout large parts of the US it is illegal to build anything but low-density suburban-style developments. These laws were largely created out of racism, a reaction to the Great Migration of the 20th century, but now that we're stuck with them it will take decades to clean up the mess.

Wait, I thought people didn’t want to live in the suburbs? You saying if they built low rise medium density housing in the ‘burbs people would live there? What’s the point?

Some people would prefer not to live in the suburbs, but do so anyway, because they can't afford anything else.

If it were legal to build low-rise, medium-density housing throughout the cities, more people would choose to live there, rather than the suburbs, because commuting sucks and city amenities are great.

Instead, restrictive zoning codes set aside large swaths of the city for single-family homes; the large plots of land they occupy mean that only rich people can afford them, which forces everyone else to compete for a limited number of apartments. Land for apartments being artificially limited means that construction cannot keep up with demand, so apartment prices rise too. The working class get forced out to the suburbs; eventually the middle-class have to go, too, whether they like it or not.

We should repeal these zoning codes and let people build dense housing wherever it's economically justified. Then, the choice really could be "to each his/her own": people who genuinely prefer to live in the suburbs could still go there, while people who would rather live in the city could do that instead.

I disagree 100%. I would agree some people prefer the city and can’t now.

We have suburbs because people want them.

The best example is when I lived in Singapore. Great public transit and high density housing. No need for a car.

When I talked to Singaporeans, most dreamed of owning a single family home (a landed home) with its own yard and a car. And we’re talking 90% preference.

Perhaps you're right. Why don't we put it to the test? If I'm right, the current US regime of restrictive zoning is causing serious harm, and ought to be repealed; if you're right, however, the market is already doing a good job of satisfying demand, which means restrictive zoning is merely an unnecessary administrative burden. Either way, we would come out ahead by liberalizing urban zoning codes.

To each their own is the problem -- building mid-density housing often isn't permitted in the USA.

Sorry, shouldn't have phrased this as "without noise". Without that level of noise? Having lived in both East Somerville and West Somerville for almost a decade I've never heard the OP's music (except for porchfest, an annual music festival in the neighborhood), street racing, or continuous dog barking.

When we all have windows open in summer we can hear one of our neighbors' TVs a bit though, and there can be noise between floors of multifamilies.

Is Strong Towns an unbiased source? I mean, would they ever publish an article that runs counter to their policy position?

I’d assume one needs a bit broader set of data than that that comes from a clearly anti-suburb position.

It’s like only looking at NRA sources on the need for gun control.

And yet, the entire cost of FDRs New Deal was $1-Trillion (2022 dollars) compared to $5-6 Trillion in COVID stimulus...