I have no idea and actually it's also quite common in the US if you look at the large corporations, the difference is that in the EU they actually mean it and in the US it tends to be more of a PR Campaign (I am probably generalising a bit).
Yeah, probably. But that lends credence to their advocacy, if anything.
No, the historical trend has been quite clear on this, people tend to prefer urban sprawl and planners tend to love densification.
You're drawing some strange causal lines here. Sprawl is self-reinforcing - the more you sprawl - outward, low density, auto dependent, unwalkable - the more difficult it is to do anything else. It's really difficult to retrofit proper public transport infrastructure or vibrant mixed-use precincts, leading to even more sprawl as people think it's the only option.
And if it's illegal to build more densely closer to the city core and key surrounding destinations, then the
only way development can happen is outward. Nothing about this points to sprawl being the 'preference'.
Not sure what this has to do with the smart cities question, though.
Cities such as Paris, London and NY are actually less dense now than they were 100 years ago and the reason is that the city expanded faster than net migration did,
That's because of sprawl's destructive nature.
Many cities grew in size, even while losing people.
"Sprawl has continued apace even in places where the American population has grown little or not at all in recent decades. From 1970 to 1990, the Chicago area’s population rose by only 4 percent, but the region’s built-up land increased 46 percent. Metropolitan Cleveland’s population actually declined by 8 percent, yet 33 percent more of the area’s territory was developed."
It is not so much about what people prefer, but what they can afford, sprawling to the outside is generally cheaper than going to the sky.
It's only 'cheaper', if externalities and palmed off costs are ignored. If you look at the total cost of sprawl, it's immense.
The New Climate Economy Report shows how countries at all levels of income can achieve economic growth while combating climate change
newclimateeconomy.report
Sprawl imposes more than $400 billion dollars in external costs and $625 billion in internal costs annually in the U.S.
many EU cities are actually on par with the US, their inner cities make up a small fraction of the actual cities.
Nope.
New York, the densest city in the US, has a
third of the density of Frankfurt, Germany's 5th densest city. European
suburbs are 3 times as dense as US ones.
Europeans are moving to the suburbs too
reason.org
European suburbs average a population of 6,600 per square mile, while the central cities average 18,800. There is no doubt that European suburbs are more dense than U.S. suburbs (2,700 per square mile)
yes, I know. I cannot see any other time that people hated Davos this much, most of us had only a vague idea of them before all of this started.
What do you base this on?
thehill.com
