While I agree with you in theory, in practice, no, we could not transform that fast, to a significant degree, unless we first basically had something like a Maoist genocide of current landowners, burned all the existing building and land use codes, and started over.
More than just the whole… rich people have way too much control over society thing…
The amount of NIMBYism in the US is insane.
(Not In My BackYard)
Every single element of every city’s zoning laws and building regulations are designed to benefit existing property owners and existing properties, as they currently are.
We would have to dismantle a whole lot of that to actually change the fundamental street grid system.
… The problem is complex not so much in technical, engineering, how do we actually do this kinds of ways… but in the way of: there are way too many powerful groups and actors that will fuck up every stage of any process that is attempting to change anything about urban design.
I guess you could say our governance structures are as gridlocked as the actual streets are.
While I agree with you in theory, in practice, no, we could not transform that fast, to a significant degree, unless we first basically had something like a Maoist genocide of current landowners, burned all the existing building and land use codes, and started over.
More than just the whole… rich people have way too much control over society thing…
The amount of NIMBYism in the US is insane.
(Not In My BackYard)
Every single element of every city’s zoning laws and building regulations are designed to benefit existing property owners and existing properties, as they currently are.
We would have to dismantle a whole lot of that to actually change the fundamental street grid system.
… The problem is complex not so much in technical, engineering, how do we actually do this kinds of ways… but in the way of: there are way too many powerful groups and actors that will fuck up every stage of any process that is attempting to change anything about urban design.
I guess you could say our governance structures are as gridlocked as the actual streets are.
That’s true, reading your comment reminded me of SUBURBIA!!! Definitely not easy to fix that.
Certainly a good place to start with better zoning as you say.