The Road That Killed a City

100 years ago you could live in any part of any city or small town, hop on a streetcar or even walk a short distance, get everything you needed for your day to day life, and be back home in 15-30 minutes.

I can't drive to the nearest pharmacy to pick up a prescription and make it back home in less than 60 minutes, and I live in a sizeable clump of cities.

This is a US thing, and it's spreading. When I lived in Sydney, I could leave work in North Sydney, get on a train, get off at Central, go to the butcher and the baker and a small grocery and general store, then ride a bus home. Door to door in 30 minutes during rush hour.

In the US we've decided somehow that we should throw all of that convenience out the window in favor of accommodating cars at the expense of almost everything else, and it's sad. all cities of a given size look the same, now, and you can't do anything without a car or some form of public transport. there's no personality in our cities anymore unless you are in a historic district or at the city center where new roads can't be built and existing ones can't be widened.

I agree though. Cities are cities because they're dense, having buildings larger than a standard house or 4-6 lane roads doesn't mean the city is dead it means it has more traffic to move