I would really love to see a billionaire tackle this. There's loads of empty, or nearly empty, space in this country. Heck, take over a town if you really want! Sink a few million dollars into kickstarting small-scale urbanism.
I'm not usually much of a billionaire-hater, but today's lot for the most part seems to be uninspired, when it comes to projects like this.
This is why the only solution we see are maximized profit vehicles. The qualities that would make someone want to create a lovely place to live exclude them from making billions of dollars in the first place.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
This is part of the housing supply mystery. It's not very profitable to build housing when you are punished for building upwards and making good use of the land
I don't think people quite wrap their head around the fact that the US population love their cars and their huge subdivisions. A massive percentage of the US have no desire for walkable cities.
It is a bizarre alien thought to me, too, but it has become very clear to me.
Or the people living in them might be retired, or work from home, or work on local farms. Whatever the case, they're not driving a long way for work.
I was in the Midwest recently and it was wild to see a block of high density houses in the middle of farmland. Houses that look exactly the same, shoved onto tiny lots with little gap between them, and surrounded by miles of corn.
These are obviously attractive to developers as they are maximized profit vehicles, but the downsides to everyone else are enormous.
In my opinion, we need to build housing above stores, so communities can actually work. Build a town, not a subdivision. What’s the point of a $50k home if you have to spend two hours a day driving to make it work?