Better use of the money is to strong arm cities into adjusting into better land uses. Building a city from scratch you’re probably taking farm land from making food to instead be a new city, and if you can attract enough businesses to attract enough residents you’ve only helped by creating walkability for a few hundred or thousand people while the rest of the country remains car dependant.
Honestly I was on a walk recently and had the thought cross my mind of “what if this road were ripped up, the newly reclaimed land was sold for housing and small quiet businesses and the sidewalks widened into first class bike/walking paths just wide enough for an emergency/utility vehicle to drive down?” and I got a little sad that such a utopian vision just isn’t politically palatable.
I agree with you, that would be a much more effective use of resources. It’s a fantasy though, and it’s way more fun for me to daydream about design than manipulating public policy.
All that said it’s not a fruitless endeavor to think about how you would build something from scratch even if you can’t. It is a good way to hash out ideas without getting bogged down by the resistance to change.
Better use of the money is to strong arm cities into adjusting into better land uses. Building a city from scratch you’re probably taking farm land from making food to instead be a new city, and if you can attract enough businesses to attract enough residents you’ve only helped by creating walkability for a few hundred or thousand people while the rest of the country remains car dependant.
Honestly I was on a walk recently and had the thought cross my mind of “what if this road were ripped up, the newly reclaimed land was sold for housing and small quiet businesses and the sidewalks widened into first class bike/walking paths just wide enough for an emergency/utility vehicle to drive down?” and I got a little sad that such a utopian vision just isn’t politically palatable.
I agree with you, that would be a much more effective use of resources. It’s a fantasy though, and it’s way more fun for me to daydream about design than manipulating public policy.
All that said it’s not a fruitless endeavor to think about how you would build something from scratch even if you can’t. It is a good way to hash out ideas without getting bogged down by the resistance to change.