[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by ue

What evidence do you have that people are choosing this kind of environment and housing? As you say:



Poor people often lack the choice in where they live, work, and such due to the economic system working against them. For many people, they're living not by choice, but because it is the only affordable option, particularly in expensive metros. What alternatives exist? Old, walkable neighbourhoods that haven't been completely gutted are in high demand and many people end up priced out.

Further, there is something to be said about how suburbia and car culture has been manufactured at the state and corporate level, which necessarily influences how people view things based on the ideology of American society and what they're brought up to believe in (the fancy car, "nice" suburban home trope).



Sure.. not everybody wants or needs to live downtown. But why do suburbs have to look like the first satellite image in the OP? Why can't they resemble the second? We could absolutely be building suburbs like the older parts of Evanston, Des Plaines, Elgin, and Forest Park if we shifted our priorities.



Which are environmentally harmful, famously flammable, and do not last.



Affordable housing for the working class is good and cities need more of it. But it should not have to be the exclusive domain of lowest quality housing in the lowest quality neighbourhoods, as it tends to be. The kinds of communities that are in the first satellite image also further ingrain the need for a car by their design, which is far more expensive than public transit, walking, or cycling,

Of course lowest-income people will be living in the lowest quality housing in the lowest quality communities.

Should it be the opposite, and how?