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Comment by CalRobert | Hacker News Reader

4. I think you forgot "build taller"?

" it is ironic how the modern urban population that is so quick to assign blame for climate change (to car owners, carnivores), social injustice (to white men, preferably older), or simply a lack of mobile network coverage fails to understand their own contribution to the problems of a modern city."

What are you talking about? Cars ARE half the problems of a modern city. Car owners are the other half. Rip out the damn parking and put in flats. Ban cars and put in bike lanes. They're far, far more efficient, and have the added benefit of not mowing down pedestrians and boiling children.

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Can't agree more. Your point is also applicable to people who delude themselves into believing an "off-grid" or "homestead" lifestyle is less burdensome to the environment or lends to a less consumerist way of life...

If you're _really_ off-grid, it probably is. A hermit living off the land in a wooden shack they make with hand tools and solar panels on top, using a mountain bike to get around, probably doesn't have much of a carbon footprint.

The main issue is when you're still basically on-grid but a long ways away from everything, and depend on a car.

Though I am probably biased because I just bought a bit of land and hope to grow my own food on it. Pretty easy bike ride from the train station, though, and I work 100% remote.

Good plan. More people per square meter. That means you have shorter ways and switch your congestion from the road or the subway to the elevator in your apartment complex. Might even be better for climate but does not sound like a better way of live.

If you want to remove car ownership you should try to provide an alternative that is actually better. If you want to avoid congestion, don't create a massive black hole in the center of each city that everything gravitates to.

Public transportation in Berlin is good, very good - it is the alternative that’s actually better. And the city does not have gravitating center for commuters - at least not the same way as other big cities: office density in Mitte or Kreuzberg is nothing compared to Manhattan or Moscow-City.

"Nobody goes there anymore! It's too crowded", is basically what you sound like.

There are many many people in the world who love cities. All the things that you hate about cities, they love.

Cities make up like 1% of the world wide land use. How about we leave this 1% of land to the people who love cities, and let the rest of the people who don't, to have the other 99%?

What's wrong with more people per square meter? Some of us like living in dense cities that you can navigate by walking and public transit.

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