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Personally, I think it's a golden opportunity to transition from a nation of sprawled-out houses and freeways to one of dense condo towers and subways. The social and environmental damage of 50 years of car-centric white-flight suburban sprawl cannot be walked back soon enough; a mass migration to transit-centric megacities is one of few realistic prospects for averting climate change.

But the ascendant cities have decided not to accommodate any substantial population growth, so it's just another grotesque episode of gentrification and displacement, replacing city populations without really growing them, and only the most affluent from small cities and towns have a chance of making it in the more productive ones.



There's a problem. Search for the "law of rent." Sprawl offered some respite from this, allowing the growth of a larger middle class.


I'm not sure what the problem is. Land prices for multifamily-residential zoned parcels would reflect the most efficient multifamily-residential structures allowed. I'm not terribly concerned with the price of land in my neighborhood: I split ~5 houses' worth with 500 neighbors via a 35-story building.


There are many countries with a larger proportion of middle class and at the same time less sprawl than in USA. For example Denmark, Japan.


You are describing social upheaval on a massive scale. If this happens quickly, it will be messy.


The car remade human geography rather quickly, if a long time ago. The creation of suburbia was a fast-moving social upheaval on a massive scale.




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