This is a pipe dream. US cities will never be able to accommodate public transportation as a viable alternative to car ownership. Take a drive around Europe and take a drive around the US and it becomes very obvious, very quickly, why that’s the case. You can’t go back and relayout every American town and city. Just not gonna happen. Sorry. Find something else to pour your energy into.
Not to mention that many/most Americans don’t want to live in your utopia. I’ve lived in walkable, lively parts of cities. Now I live in a stand-alone house and drive everywhere and I much prefer it.
> You can’t go back and relayout every American town and city.
You don't actually need to do this! Its a fantasy that you somehow need to re-design your city to make improvements.
In fact, by simply removing some harmful regulation you can already do 100x better. Removing the function based zoning. Allow mixed use as default. Removing lots of the other regulation such as minimum lot size, offsets and so on.
US city were not designed for cars, and mostly they are simple grids, and that's totally fine.
Changes in pricing for things like water, move to block pricing and increase price depending on how much infrastructure is required.
The tax system should move from property based to land based.
Cars need to be slowed down, lanes need to be made thinner, and add a protected bike lane. This is actually a case where US insane wide streets come in handy, space for bike-lanes is already there.
> Not to mention that many/most Americans don’t want to live in your utopia. I’ve lived in walkable, lively parts of cities. Now I live in a stand-alone house and drive everywhere and I much prefer it.
Even rural and small towns or even villages can be walkable.
And your taxes are likely not covering the infrastructure required for you live-style, you are subsidized by the poorer parts of the city you live in.
Also evidence shows, that areas such as I suggest are getting a huge amount of demand and are really expensive. So I think evidence is clear that there is a huge amount for such development.
And evidence also shows that where they happen they actually make sense for cities in terms of taxation.
Not to mention that many/most Americans don’t want to live in your utopia. I’ve lived in walkable, lively parts of cities. Now I live in a stand-alone house and drive everywhere and I much prefer it.