And for people not interested in living in a city?
I'm genuinely curious on this note. I love utopian visions of cities, but also recognize that even if they existed, more than a few folks wouldn't want to inhabit them.
They can live somewhere else and drive their ICE cars around. I don't care that much what they do, but I want a live in a city that's livable. I think my vision would make for the most livable city possible.
I live in a city which has a central district unavailable for most of the cars(aside from residents, but parking spaces are very limited).
I would never want to live in that district. Reasons:
- Buildings are very close to each other which makes the place dark and noisy(sound bounces off the walls).
- Rent is high, because apartments are so close to everything that landlords can get away with high prices.
- Trash day is once a week, because you can't have a garbage truck roaming the streets every morning waking everybody up.
- Summer is hell, because air can't travel through all this tight space.
Once you get rid of the roads you create a perverse incentive to place something there instead, e.g. buildings. And this is what ultimately happens.
Also: assuming you're walking at a brisk pace of 6km/h. In 30 minutes you're going to travel 3km, which means that in order to be able to walk from one end to another you'll need a city with an area of at most 7km^2.
> - Trash day is once a week, because you can't have a garbage truck roaming the streets every morning waking everybody up.
While I agree with the rest of your points, "once a week" trash service is pretty standard in many areas. And if you have properly integrated mechanisms within buildings, even that might be more often than needed.