The size of the country absolutely has something to do with how far apart things are. Macau and Singapore are incredibly dense, by necessity. Singapore as a country is almost as dense as New York City.
The United States is incredibly less dense overall, which is reflected in part in the local density of city areas (because there is a viable alternative in the US). These viable alternatives mean that not everyone has to pay Manhattan real estate prices for their warehouse business or office park business, and so you see businesses choosing between Manhattan real estate for certain businesses and White Plains real estate for other businesses. In turn, this means that not everyone has the luxury of having their job and their spouse's job continuously within a short city commuting distance for the entire 6 years someone typically owns a house in the US.
Urban sprawl is enabled, in part, by the size of the country and the fact that viable alternatives exist to ultra-high urban density.
> The size of the country absolutely has something to do with how far apart things are.
> Urban sprawl is enabled
"Enabled" is the key word here. The US has enough space to sprawl out if it so chose, and indeed, we chose that. We didn't have to, though, and we could choose differently for the future.
If we want better transit in the future, we could start choosing, via policy, regulations that encourage communities that are more walk- and transit-friendly. Other countries have little suburbs that still have decent transit, that don't require people to own a car to do normal errands, and we could have that too, if we wanted.
Right, I'm not saying we have to. But I do think it would be beneficial in a bunch of ways: more environmentally friendly, physically healthier, cheaper, safer, etc.
And I think lots of other people agree those are good outcomes, the biggest issue is that people in the US have trouble imagining it working for them, because car-dominant sprawl is all they've known, and transit wherever they live is either non-existent or very bad.
1. It's not about forcing people to choose one way or the other(a). It's about being honest about two things:
a) That it WAS a choice, not some geographic inevitability, as is often suggested; we could've chosen differently, and we still can today.
b) That this particular choice has some very real costs in terms of finances, health, safety, etc.
My belief is that if Americans were more aware of the costs and the possible alternatives, many more people, possibly a majority, would probably support those alternatives. But there's a ton of cultural momentum behind driving in the US, and most people have never even lived anywhere where walking and transit were viable ways to get around, so they don't consider it a realistic policy option, even though it is.
2. My ideal is having a variety of transportation options be viable. Does being able to choose from walking, biking, transit, and driving sound like being 'forced' more than having no choice but to drive? The status quo restricts our choices much more than my ideal would.
A - Although since we're talking about government regulations, it's true that no matter what happens, people are going to be 'forced' on some level, since you don't get individual choice over your built environment.
The United States is incredibly less dense overall, which is reflected in part in the local density of city areas (because there is a viable alternative in the US). These viable alternatives mean that not everyone has to pay Manhattan real estate prices for their warehouse business or office park business, and so you see businesses choosing between Manhattan real estate for certain businesses and White Plains real estate for other businesses. In turn, this means that not everyone has the luxury of having their job and their spouse's job continuously within a short city commuting distance for the entire 6 years someone typically owns a house in the US.
Urban sprawl is enabled, in part, by the size of the country and the fact that viable alternatives exist to ultra-high urban density.