Adron Only because for the last 30-50 years Cities and the Fed Government have encouraged and pushed people from downtown by subsidizing suburban growth post Streetcar.
JK: Whoa! European cities grew their suburbs too in that period. People choose to live in low density when they can afford it - that is why NYC etc are far less dense than they were 100 years ago. Look at where the rich live: Dunthorpe, LO. Look at where the rich used to live: the country home. All that happened is the middle class was enabled to live like the rich used to. That is called increased standard of living, something that the planners are trying to turn around.

Adron Take similar size cities as Portland that has a more "road building" and "road subsidizing" mentality and you find utter chaos and hours of sitting traffic a day WITHOUT another option to get around.
JK: You just described Portland! The basic problem is that we add capacity to our water, sewer, phone and electric systems as our population increases, but not to our roads as population increases.

Adron But in Portland we do have other choices about how to live, get around,
JK: Only if you destination in downtown, otherwise mass transit is failure. Its market share of area trips is a low single digit number. Too low to have any effect on congestion. I can even make a plausible argument that it has actually increased traffic congestion, be diverting funds from road building and buses blocking traffic. Then there is the congestion increase on Interstate avenue absolutely due to MAX.

Adron and a far better quality of life. I don't always agree with the funding priorities and the way it is done but the fact is it's the only way to rebalance various lifestyles after 50 years of Social Engineering and City Planners pushing suburban growth styles.
JK: Better quality of live in the dense city? Most people prefer the lower crime, less crowded, better schools of the burbs. People also tend to prefer a back yard to a court yard.

Thanks
JK