because it's not mutually exclusive. i feel like that's why your arguments are ultimately hard to parse.
I really am ok with living with less possible surface area if it means i can have walkable access to all civilization's great ideas and achievements.
that doesn't mean ZERO surface area. and it doesn't mean i would take a mcmansion on 5 acres if i could. Really though, I wouldn't if you gave it to me!
Yes, it is. It's a zero-sum game, and dense cities are more economically advantageous for companies. They allow them to offload their externalities onto their employees, via increased living costs.
Tokyo is a GREAT example. It's now so dense and expensive that some people are forced to live in microapartments, where you can cook your food while sitting on a toilet. And of course, they are priced out of ever dreaming about buying a real apartment.
And the cities nearby keep dying, just a couple of hours away from Tokyo, you can buy a house for basically free.
i really do take you seriously. and i learn from you.
but also: come on, Japan is the planet's most economically significant TINY ISLAND. you don't have to reach for capitalist conspiracy theories to reason about Japan's issues.
and i say this as a kind of inevitable anti-capitalist!
I've lived various lifestyles. If i was to bluntly answer your question, really it's because I hate cars. I understand that global economies need last mile delivery infrastructure and so there's roads. I get that.
But if you ask me to live a life of Suburban commuting, I'd tell you, from experience: that's inhumane.
I'm born and raised in Los Angeles. It's not the absolute worst, but it gives me the credibility I need to say yeah i'd rather literally walk and bike everywhere than suffer the inhumanity of car culture.
You were replying to another commenter so patronizingly, which isn't a common interaction, that I was puzzled. But then I realized you do so because you are really just so confident in your opinion on this matter. And I assumed that means this is the opinion held by your social group or political organization, but then I thought I'd let you explain.
And there's nothing "conspiracy" about what I'm saying. There's no secret global cabal that wants to push people into cities. It's simply caused by a toxic confluence of ideology and economic forces.
Tokyo's crowding is absolutely due to Japan being an island with essentially zero natural resources. Literally everyone wants to go to tokyo because there are no other jobs.
> Literally everyone wants to go to tokyo because there are no other jobs.
Natural resources have nothing to do with it. Extraction industries employ comparatively few people, even in resource-rich countries. If anything, resource-rich countries experience even more densification.
Case in point: Moscow. Its population density is 5200 people per square kilometer. Tokyo is at 6100 people per square kilometer.
The reason is that it's easier for companies to create jobs in cities. It's not impossible for them to do otherwise, but a company with one huge office in the Downtown will likely have a competitive advantage over a company that has multiple distributed offices.
Oh my god, houses with more then one family in it, that straight out of Judge Dread. Everybody will live in vertical super cities with apartments like capsule hotels.
I would be laughing if it wasn't so utterly sad and depressing that you think that the reality.
Then why do you want density? Do you want other people to live in bunk beds in 40 years?