The transition to suburban living happened within only a few decades, so it’s not unreasonable to think we could undo a lot of the mistakes within our own lifetimes.
> They did not bulldoze vast swaths of urban to make room
They certainly did, depending on your definition of vast. "According to estimates from the U.S. Department of Transportation, more than 475,000 households and more than a million people were displaced nationwide because of the federal roadway construction."
The difference is that it won't take much space to replace the suburbs with low-car or no-car living. Doing infill housing in metropolises is many many times more efficient in terms of land use, infrastructure demands, etc.
We don't need to make new cities from scratch at all, we simply need to allow gradual redevelopment of the urban cores.
Exactly! Merely allowing a tiny fraction of already developed land to be redeveloped at what were natural rates 120 years ago would mean that the suburbs would be almost completely untouched while those who want something different can also get what they want out of life.
It’s also possible to simply abandon undesirable neighbourhoods and leave for someplace better. In the most extreme example, in the second half of the 20th century, half of Detroit’s population rapidly left the city, as quickly as they had arrived in the first half of the century.
It’s quite possible that some suburban areas will experience the same boom and bust, now that dense cities are no longer polluted industrial hell-holes.
With modern zoning, NIMBYism, the reliance of housing as a form of retirement and investment, greater regulation, etc - no chance.
Housing in general is screwed in the US because of the investment angle. Both companies and regular citizens alike will fight fiercely against anything that could decrease the value of their homes - no matter how much it is in the interest of the long-term health, happiness and finances of their city.
I would argue the opposite: it's far easier for people to move where they have a job, access to food, and a community. Starting a new city is really hard, and not many people have the excess savings to do that or the will to be so isolated for so long.
I'm not talking about building a new city tabula rasa style, the suburbs weren't starting a new city merely expanding it so the jobs, food access, and to a lesser extent community were provided by the city they were moving away from initially then shops moved into the area for the newly minted customers. The increased distance didn't matter so much because of the exploding prevalence of cars shrinking distances.
