"and walking is made more viable at the stroke of a pen simply by changing the zoning and building code to actually allow people to build walkable neighbourhoods with retail amenities,..."
This is an easy claim but unrealistic in North America. For the Boomers that have lived in single family housing for decades, those who also represent the larget voting block in most major cities, you're expecting them to forfeit their percieved "quality of life."
Have you seen large apartment projects in US cities, they are atrociously designed, with the vanity of walkability but rarely deliver the NYC or San Francisco level of walkability that they are selling.
Yimbys would do well to insist upon better replacement products.
> Yimbys would do well to insist upon better replacement products.
I have long ago learned that I can't think of everything. By allowing someone else to think and rethink the problem instead of insisting on a solution we can do better.
We have many examples of mandated replacement products where the ground floor retail I so strongly went is intentionally left empty because there is no demand. We have many examples of other things that sound good in the design phase but turn out not to work out for whatever reason.
Thus I want to allow property owners to as much as possible do what they want. Some things they will try will turn out to not work out. Then they will try something else until someone hits on a winning idea and then all developers will copy that. Thus I will allow you to build a pig barn right next door: so long as your pig barn cannot be smelled in my yard I'm okay with it - in this way people can figure out how to build great neighborhoods without me having to work out all the details including about things I didn't think about.
This is an easy claim but unrealistic in North America. For the Boomers that have lived in single family housing for decades, those who also represent the larget voting block in most major cities, you're expecting them to forfeit their percieved "quality of life."
Have you seen large apartment projects in US cities, they are atrociously designed, with the vanity of walkability but rarely deliver the NYC or San Francisco level of walkability that they are selling.
Yimbys would do well to insist upon better replacement products.