[CalRobert]

Supporting remote, small towns is difficult to do without emitting a lot of carbon. I actually like the idea from a cultural and aesthetic viewpoint, but the city dweller generally has a smaller carbon footprint than the person in a small town (adjusting for income).

[thatcat]

That's only due to the density of development and the cheap materials/ designs used for housing. In theory a town could be both small and dense with energy efficient designs.

[waterphone]

Small towns generally do not have as wide a variety of shops as bigger cities, so residents in small town and rural environments have to drive several times a month to a bigger city, sometimes 100 miles or more round trip.

[SwellJoe]

I think that's part of the problem to solve. I think there's a happy medium: A town big enough to support a few large groceries and a couple of big box stores, but small enough to not be a traffic nightmare (hopefully walkable/bikable for most and maybe even with a small but efficient mass transit system). Very few people need to live in rural areas, anymore, but also few people need to live in the most populous and most expensive cities, except for the opportunities those bigger cities provide.

I guess I wasn't clear when saying that I think we should spread out again, I did not mean I think people should live on ranches or farms, 3 miles from their nearest neighbor and 30 miles to the nearest tiny town. That's not what the future looks like, I would hope. But, small to mid-sized towns can be reasonably dense, and can provide reasonable amenities. There are towns like this that don't get a lot of attention, and I tend to like to visit them (I'm parked in Eugene, Oregon right now, and both Eugene and Springfield match the description I've just given...though Eugene, in particular, is maybe on the large, and expensive, side of the model I'm envisioning). But, there are others: Asheville, NC and Denton, TX spring to mind as excellent examples. Real estate isn't super cheap in these cities, but it's not outrageous, either. There's plenty of shopping, plenty of entertainment, plenty of stuff to do and see, but without the soul-crushing traffic jams, and dehumanizing crowds, of (sort of) nearby Atlanta or Austin.