It doesn't matter if you use half as much energy per capita if the thing you created results in 50x more people. When I say destroy the cities I mean to include the populations in them. Through policy you make their lives so miserable that they are not replaced generationally. A similar thing was done to rural areas, their people were systematically destroyed through policy.

Most of the people on HN seem to be city-dwelling pro centralization and centralized control. It seems to be jarring for them to see their own policies of openly promoting the destruction of others lives and way of living directed back at them.

"Cities are more efficient, suburbs and rural sprawl are inefficient and bad" depends on: A: the design of the suburb B: the underlying economy they're built in C: cultural factors.

When the US contained major manufacturing, it was efficient to have large suburban sprawl - you could build spread out industrial hubs on the outskirts of town.

When the cities were not safe, it did not matter what you said - people left.

"Efficiency" is not a magic word, it has to apply to a particular resource, and does have to consider all costs. Cities are in fact, more efficient in terms of transit costs (of all types).

Doesn't matter if they use half as much energy per capita if there's 50x as many of them.

Perhaps that we do not need the same standard of living