When you argue for housing reform to legalize denser development in our cities, you quickly learn that some people hate density. Like, really hate density, with visceral disgust and contempt for any development pattern that involves buildings being tall or close together.
Recently got to see Japan and it was eye opening. It’s by far the densest country I’ve been to and also the most functional. The public transit is amazing, as trains can get you literally everywhere, even between cities. There is also hardly a square of wasted space when it comes to housing. Buildings are tall and they are packed. The roads are mostly one way and narrow, except on a few major roads. The cars that do exist are small. I did appreciate seeing what is possible.
That said, the amount of people is intense and you do walk a lot between trains. On one day, I hit 12 miles, and that included lots of public transit. It becomes tiring a bit. If humans want to keep increasing in number, we should do it the Japanese way. But, I also wonder if we shouldn’t just stop breeding so much if we don’t like intense density. Those are basically our choices. If we want to keep breeding, low density is not an option.