[fragmede]

> groceries and convenience stores and so on will naturally appear

I'm sorry, but that's not how that works. not if you really want it to happen. There's conversations between high level government officials and corporate execs to make things happen. negotiations are had, and contracts are signed. theres a city planning agency that has a CPC.

All of that is to say, there's entire industry just in the planning of cities. while we're building housing for the homeless, let's also engage them and build a viable town and start with that, and not just build the center square with hope and wishes. (Hope is not a strategy.)

[sudosysgen]

There is an entire industry for planning cities, yes. And public housing bypasses most of that industry.

It's just a simple fact that if you have a large population center, and market demand for it, basic things like grocery stores and convenience stores will pop up. Not every grocery store and convenience store is run by a large chain that negotiates with the government for a location, if you believe that's the case you are missing knowledge of that industry.

This isn't a hypothetical, things like this have been done. Just because we are overcomplicating it doesn't mean it has to be.

[toss1]

Yes, and even if they do magically popup, the grocery stores will STILL be a drive for everyone. And stores for every other supply, and the JOBS, will be a significant drive away.

So, you will have just condemned every poor person you transplanted to now buying, maintaining, and insuring an automobile or several for each family. A constantly depreciating asset. Which may well cost more than they saved in rent.

"Oh, just put in public transit", you'll say. Have you ever looked at any suburban/rural bus service? They only run infrequently, and often unreliably on time, and are so now the poor people must squander massive hours of their day just waiting on the busses, or configuring their schedule around the busses.

No one else is overcomplicating it. You are massively oversimplifying it, waving your hands about, and being very loud about proclaiming your virtuous non-solution. Stop it, and think more.

[sudosysgen]

> Yes, and even if they do magically popup, the grocery stores will STILL be a drive for everyone. And stores for every other supply, and the JOBS, will be a significant drive away.

There is basically nowhere a family can pay less for rent that the price of upkeeping a beater car - the residents were going to have a car either way. There's just not enough public transit in the US to avoid this reality outside of cities with high rent, especially for apartments large enough for a family.

[toss1]

>>...the price of upkeeping a beater car... ...not enough public transit in the US to avoid this reality outside of cities with high rent

It is not only the price of purchase, insurance, maintenance of a car, it is also the TIME you are condemning them to spend on commuting everywhere.

The solution is to make massively more residential development/redevelopment IN and NEAR the cities, such as now converting underutilized office space to residential, and not only passing regs favoring and encouraging such conversions (as is being done noe in Boston), but ALSO passing regs encouraging Remote Work.

And, where there IS public transit, encourage development there. Massachusetts is doing this, specifically encouraging conversion of offices to residential and overriding zoning laws within X distance of commuter rail stops.

Those are both good moves. But arguing for merely blanket 'develop anything anywhere' is literally stupid and will do more damage to society than any gains. There are reasons zoning was developed, and while a small part of it was racist/classist, most of it has very good reasons to exist. Simply overriding it is statist authoritarian, and saying people in their locales have no right to determine how they run their LOCAL affairs, from environmental, to historic preservation, to traffic patterns.

Plus, it's already been proven that cheap housing away from the city doesn't work. People can buy a trailer for $10-$30K and as spot for $400-1000/mth, or rentals for a bit more. But the locales are all away from the city. There are very few people who actually do it BECAUSE it is impractical to live so far from jobs in the city. If you want to house people more cheaply, it needs to be done NEAR their jobs. Destroying everything else for a bad idea will merely leave the problem unsolved, and destroy value.

I've watched towns have zoning, abandon it, then reinstate it a decade later because they saw what an awful idea it was to have none. I've seen towns that rezoned to "modernize" and destroy their character, and towns preserve their character and grow steadily into desirable locales. NONE of it is as trivial as you think.