What about water? Garbage? Electricity? Fuel?
Also what about the people that would inevitably arrive from your invitation that want to build plastic plants like in MO?
Point is I think you're hand-waving all the bad because of what it is today.
Also what about the people that would inevitably arrive from your invitation that want to build plastic plants like in MO?
Point is I think you're hand-waving all the bad because of what it is today.
For instance, city families use far less water per capita than rural and suburban families, and they produce fewer "capitas".
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-residents-praised...
And compare "water used in California to produce almonds exported to other countries" versus "water used for all SF/LA homes and businesses" below:
https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/LA-vs-Exports...
Similarly, when you take people from elsewhere in the country and move them to places like San Francisco, their consumption of fuel and electricity go down, as does their production of garbage.
After that, you have smaller but water intensive businesses.
Being suburban doesn’t mean you waste water. I live in the suburbs and our water use is minimal. I use water saving shower heads, I turn off the water during most of the shower. In fact, the water never runs for more than two minutes. I wash my car extremely rarely. I don’t water a lawn. I only water a couple of small potted plants. I have water saving toilets.
In other words, public policies that divert people away from cities tend to increase water consumption (and harm the environment by just about any other metric you can name.)