So your assertion is that if all the open space near me was mowed down to make room for massive apartment complexes, then I would actually experience less noise and traffic.

It's a bold theory but not one I want to try out in practice.

Well since it sounds like you’re in a suburb or semi rural suburb, then you likely won’t need to speculate on that. Just wait a few years and you’ll find out.

Because instead of infill density in cities, the sprawl will keep up its creep. Low density building makes that certain.

With how it goes with new development in American suburbs, it’s going to be car oriented and increase loud traffic and make walking unpleasant. (Although it’s probably already not very walkable)

Someone on the new edge will repeat your gripe, rinse and repeat.

Right so we are in agreement - I will experience more noise and more traffic in higher density, and I have every right to complain about it. My complaints may fall on deaf ears, but that is neither here nor there.

I think you missed the forest for the trees. Because Low density car oriented building is what’s going to cause your neighborhood to turn into a concrete jungle.

No. In most American suburbs you can get more density by taking 2 single family homes and replacing them with one 6-plex. You’ll also have more open space, because a 6-plex takes up around one single family lot. Especially if the 6-plex can be 4-6 stories tall. Everyone can have more (private) interior and more (shared) exterior space if the neighborhood allows a little bit of density.

As a bonus having more neighbors means things like grocery stores within walking distance become good businesses, so you need a car dramatically less and less space needs to be taken up by parking lots.

You are right, and I will amend my statement. I will get more noise and traffic if the open space near me is mowed down. I will also get more noise and traffic if all the single family homes near me are replaced with 6 plexes.

I assure you that neither of those are a good outcome as far as I'm concerned.

Cities aren't loud, cars are loud.

An interesting side benefit of switching to electric vehicles is that cities and streets will become quieter.

Not necessarily: it depends on the traffic speed. If all the cars are traveling at 20mph (using American units here), then sure, streets will be quieter. Over about 35mph, they don't: tire noise becomes the main noise factor at higher speeds.

We really need more public transit, though there also exist pavements that reduce road noise (most of it comes from tires) considerably… it’s just that it’s more expensive (and more effective) than noise walls… but government mandates say noise walls are “adequate”.

Public transit isn't economically viable when you refuse to build densely.

Its not designed to be economically viable. Its not a private business. It can be subsidized.

It's economically viable here in Japan, and most public transit here is run by private businesses.

There's no way you're going to make public transit work in the American suburbs: you're better off hiring taxis and letting people use those for free, because at least the taxis won't create so much pollution and use so much fuel. Running buses every 10 minutes in the subways with 0-2 riders will never be practical.

Its economically viable due to the train operators subsidizing the books with real estate. Its not viable in an of itself in japan either.

How is it not viable in Japan? It's clearly working fine here. No, they're not subsidizing the trains with real estate; their financials clearly show that (though they get more profit from the real estate, granted), but there is a network effect: operating the train line brings foot traffic to the station and the area around it, making the land around the station very valuable.

Maybe western countries should learn a lesson from this, instead of somehow expecting public transit to always operate at a loss. The transit itself makes land valuable, so why not use that as an opportunity for profit? Here, even inside the stations, they rent out space to convenience stores, vending machines, cafes, etc., so they make direct profit just from that, but over in the US they seem to be allergic to doing that (nor do they even have bathrooms in the stations!).

You’ll see that it’s true once you decouple the idea that one person == one more car on the road.

Aside from lawn equipment, the noise pollution I suffer from in my streetcar suburb in a major metro is almost completely from cars and other fossil fuel motorized vehicles.

I was out in a fairly high earning suburb recently and the backyard was constantly inundated by the roar of a not so nearby highway.

Like, what exactly do you think people do to make noise?

Cars make noise. More people == more cars. This will happen whatever ideas I personally may or may not have.

> More people == more cars

Counter example: Europe, Japan. It's perfectly possible for a city to grow denser of people without growing denser of cars.

My inner city neighborhood is quite calm and quiet, because the city has decent public transit with three different modes within 3 minutes walk (besides decent biking infra).

America isnt the Europe or Japan. Unfortunately things that work there do not work here. I would like that problem to be solved, but just saying "well they solved it" isnt the same as actually solving it.

I live in Europe, Belgium to be precise. There's a total overload of cars here. Could you elaborate which this city is that has less cars?

Tokyo. There's 38M people in the metro area, and the amount of cars is nothing even remotely like what you see in an American city like Houston.

When you build the city densely and don't give away free parking anywhere, it makes people not bother with driving very much. There's no place to park here, except for a few very expensive private lots that probably aren't close to where you want to go. There's no street parking. Renting a parking space at your apartment is very, very expensive (because they could be using that for something else that makes more profit instead, like more apartments or a convenience or grocery store). And you're not even allowed to own a car here unless you can prove to the police that you have a place to park it: they'll even come with a measuring tape to be sure that particular model of car will fit.

Closer to your home, maybe you should visit Amsterdam, because you've obviously never been there. There's lots of people living there without a car, and the amount of car traffic in the city center is quite low.

This is true for Belgium as well, that traffic in the city center is essentially nonexistent (after 12h and the trucks delivering goods leave) in the major cities.

But living in these car-free zones is at least double as expensive as outside (and the more central, the easier it is to live car-free, the more expensive it is). It is also totally unrealistic to live there with a family, and if you want a job in center of Brussels and live in Mechelen (for example), you need a car. Train is barely doable and only if your employer is dead center brussels (e.g. Diegem, where "the internet lives", is not realistically reachable)

And this is wrong. If you build proper mixed housing/commercial with local markets, bakery, park, coffee, restaurants, etc. You will end up reducing car use to what they are best for. But for this paradigm to exist, you need density. I lived in NA almost all my life (California, Pennsylvania, Montreal and Vancouver) and I am currently in Spain and let me tell you, density != cars.

I see you've never visited Tokyo, and have probably never set foot outside North America.

You mean this fairy tale of of peaceful cities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Xg7ui5mLA