| You start by not making the problem worse. Stop building stroads[0]. Liberalize the zoning code and allow mixed-use development. Get rid of parking minimums. The upside of how sparse American suburbs are is that we can repurpose all the junk/wasted land with normal market incentives. Roads can be thinned and the land handed back to the owners of that land, along with the setbacks that are used to force people to maintain water-intensive lawns[1]. Upzoned buildings can be redeveloped to higher density or turned into small commercial stores as market forces dictate. Anyone who wants to hold out can still do so. None of this requires absolutely banning cars[2]. People will stop driving as cars become less necessary for daily suburban life. Road trips can still happen. So instead of families with three or four cars, maybe they only have one or two. As car infrastructure is used less, it can be repurposed for transit networks that don't suck - i.e. BRT, light rail, or tram systems with dedicated rights of way. "15 minute city" doesn't mean "you should only ever travel 15 minutes on foot and anything further will be stopped by the pollution police". It means "building a city so that everything you need is closer and more convenient". [0] Surface street / highway combos, i.e. roads with 3 lanes on each side, highway speed traffic, no pedestrian infrastructure, and business access. They try to do everything and fail at everything. [1] Incidentally this was sold as a way to stop communism, somehow [2] OK, but can we still at least ban the giant Escalade mega-SUVs that let you run down like ten kids without even seeing them |