> prefer living in an urban, high-COL area? I'm not sitting here in Brooklyn eagerly awaiting a chance to move to a cheap giant home in the suburbs - I genuinely like walkable communities
There is nothing physical that makes it more expensive to build dense, walkable communities. On the contrary: Shorter distances mean less roads, less pipes, and apartment buildings (and smaller apartments) mean less heating costs. It should be cheaper, from the material point of view.
The problem is political: People already living in walkable communities tend to vote for keeping newcomers out of moving into their walkable communities, vote against building more homes in their communities or expanding the walkable communities at their edges. This shortsighted selfishness, pull-the-ladder-up-behind-you-attitude of people already living and voting in walkable communities is doing the penalizing. And potential newcomers don't have the right to vote in the local elections of the walkable communities they are only aspiring to move in to.
There is nothing physical that makes it more expensive to build dense, walkable communities. On the contrary: Shorter distances mean less roads, less pipes, and apartment buildings (and smaller apartments) mean less heating costs. It should be cheaper, from the material point of view.
The problem is political: People already living in walkable communities tend to vote for keeping newcomers out of moving into their walkable communities, vote against building more homes in their communities or expanding the walkable communities at their edges. This shortsighted selfishness, pull-the-ladder-up-behind-you-attitude of people already living and voting in walkable communities is doing the penalizing. And potential newcomers don't have the right to vote in the local elections of the walkable communities they are only aspiring to move in to.