| With a bit of planning, there is no difference in quality of life for able-bodied people living in communities from "town" up to metropolis: Center of large city (i. e. new York, Paris): Above a certain density, public transport becomes the norm across all income levels (cf. bankers in New York). Suburb of large city down to towns: For commuters coming in from the suburbs, there are hundreds of cities that show that rail is an option that's affordable and it usually takes 1/2h to the city center. What motivates people to buy cars seems to be mostly daily life within the suburbs: shopping, getting children to school etc. This is a failure of city planning, because it's perfectly feasible to combine the density of a suburb with local subcenters that provide all daily needs (schools, shopping, medical etc.) within walking distance (let's say 1.5 miles). Taking the worst as an example, the density of Atlanta's suburbs is about 1000/sq mile (http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/city-vs-city/6570...). Meaning there are 7074 people within a mile of any given point. That's plenty to sustain the infrastructure to provide for daily needs, although it may mean a need for more, but somewhat smaller schools/shops etc. (If this isn't convincing, consider that Atlanta is the worst of the worst in terms of waste of space. You can easily fit 10000 people within a mile^2 and still have backyards for everyone). It's only rural living that requires a car. The quality of live in large cities will dramatically increase in the next few years, if only because self-driving cars and car sharing require far fewer parking spots. These make up about half of the space required for cars right now, meaning their abolition could double the space available for pedestrians. |
