The Reagan White House moved to lower tax rates for developers in the 1980s and then years of low interest rates glutted downtowns with office buildings. Time's up.
I think there’s a big difference in how you understand these things depending what angle you come from, logistically your situation makes no sense and only seems to exist, as you said, because of car centric infrastructure. Where I live was very much designed around foot traffic and yes it’s great being able to get all the daily things nearby, I love the parks and on rare occasions I actually went to go where the busses take me, plan to be back before they stop and don’t have to take more than a bags worth of stuff with me they’re great too.
There are very real problems though, local library is useful if you order books and don’t mind waiting forever, shops likewise are great for bread, cheese and snacks but unless you want a very boring diet and dont mind paying a premium otherwise you need to go somewhere with a higher volume of trade than the walkable zone around the local shops can support - that’s before you consider things beyond food like tools, clothes, and services.
All the small grocery stores their entire customer base can walk to are more expensive than larger stores and they all sell the same basic items - it’s just logistics. It’s not hard to look at the lives people here lived before cars, they had less and did less and lived much worse lives - well those the couldn’t afford a horse drawn carriage of course, personal wheeled transport has been deemed a necessity of good living for centuries.
I think there’s a big difference in how you understand these things depending what angle you come from, logistically your situation makes no sense and only seems to exist, as you said, because of car centric infrastructure. Where I live was very much designed around foot traffic and yes it’s great being able to get all the daily things nearby, I love the parks and on rare occasions I actually went to go where the busses take me, plan to be back before they stop and don’t have to take more than a bags worth of stuff with me they’re great too.
There are very real problems though, local library is useful if you order books and don’t mind waiting forever, shops likewise are great for bread, cheese and snacks but unless you want a very boring diet and dont mind paying a premium otherwise you need to go somewhere with a higher volume of trade than the walkable zone around the local shops can support - that’s before you consider things beyond food like tools, clothes, and services.
All the small grocery stores their entire customer base can walk to are more expensive than larger stores and they all sell the same basic items - it’s just logistics. It’s not hard to look at the lives people here lived before cars, they had less and did less and lived much worse lives - well those the couldn’t afford a horse drawn carriage of course, personal wheeled transport has been deemed a necessity of good living for centuries.