Cities are becoming increasingly unaffordable and increasingly violent. I think that we are past “peak metro” and that the absolute refusal of many people to return to office work is going to result in an acceleration of out-migration from cities. This in turn will exacerbate other urban problems as the revenue base dries up and low wage employees become ever more difficult to find in urban areas.
Cities are increasingly unaffordable largely because of anti-urban, car-centric policies (zoning, infrastructure plans).
> If people want to live in cities and want to have a car-free lifestyle, then more power to you.
It's really not about what people want, it never has been. It is illegal to build walkable areas in almost all of the US. Laws need to be changed, immediately, for our well-being and the survival of our civilization. And then you can still go live in the country if you want to; it's awesome out there and you can be even further from the sprawl.
There are certainly some places with dumb laws, but I’d want to see evidence that “It’s illegal to build walkable areas in most of the US”. THAT sounds like fear mongering. Every house I have ever bought has had local ordinances requiring sidewalks.
You aren’t allowed to build sidewalks and trails on land you don’t own; I guess that is illegal in the sense that trespass is illegal. Also many areas don’t have the revenue to keep up sidewalks so they don’t build them. That sounds fiscally responsible to me even if a little sad, but is also a far cry from “illegal”.
The Roman empire, which existed from 27 BC to AD 395, had Rome as its capital, and while numbers are subject to discussion given the age, the floor for the density of the city of Rome back then, which had a large number of insulae, or apartment buildings, is 30,000 people/sq km. A more recent estimate put it at 72,150 people per square kilometer *. For reference, Manhattans' population density as of the 2020 census is 72,918 people per square kilometer.
This was 1,600 years ago! That is to say, there is precedent for humans living in the kinds of densities we have today, without anywhere near the kinds of technology we have. There was no electricity, no cars, no Internet back in '400. They most modern revolutionary thing was running water, and even then they used lead pipes for it and had no electrical pumps to pump it up to the 9th floor. One thing that will be familiar to modern readers is that the government came in and imposed regulations, making some buildings illegal due to height restrictions.
* https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA20586744&sid=googleSc....