PHILADELPHIA-CAMDEN-WILMINGTON-ATLANTIC CITY-READING | Metro Development Thread

[el don]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

I'm not saying they wouldn't drive at all, that would be naive. What 3rd and I are saying is that they'd drive less if the community that they lived in had places they could actually walk to. How many people do you know who walk to a gas station?



The longer that we keep collectively thinking like this, the harder it will be to actually avoid densifying. If we continue to build sprawl, especially in places like this within Philadelphia's ring road, it will only serve to:

1. Artificially inflate housing prices owing to induced scarcity
2. Which will in turn push more people out of home ownership and into apartment buildings
3. Which will inevitably lead to suburbs "densifying" but in a way that is neither desirable nor sustainable.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel here. We can look at models of cities that have done this well in Europe (and even domestically!), and improve on the mistakes that they made. Suburbs serve an important place in a city's environment, but if they are built in a way that is inherently unsustainable, everyone loses.

Long story short, we need towns. Places like Ardmore, Ambler, Lansdale, Doylestown, Newtown, Media, Swarthmore. These are sustainable.

I'm not against what your saying, I'm just trying to tell you that: 1. With this particular site, no one is walking anywhere, and it will increase traffic in that area that is already horrendous. 2. Your urban mindset planning, is not what the suburban minded people who actually live there want. You can yell at the clouds all you want, it's not going to change what the actually residents that have to deal with that area want.