Item — HN Reader

Great point.

Also worth asking, can a city not just find a comfortable homeostasis? Is it every city's goal to become increasingly dense? Do we measure the "success" of a city on GDP?

I don't. I think the best cities in the world would include Paris, St. Petersburg, Valpariaso, not the manufacturing centers of China or America.

So, define "save."

1 comments

Paris is twice as dense as SF, and denser than any other US city except New York. Increasing density isn't necessarily a goal, but it's a sign of a healthy city - it means people want to live there so much that they're willing to pack together closer in order to be there, and it helps drive the cultural wealth (food, culture, social) that marks the most prominent cities such as NY, Paris, London, Hong Kong, etc.

Manila, Mumbai, Dhaka? Nothing against any of them but they're usually not what people are thinking about when they're extolling the benefits of density. You also need to be careful with city density numbers in general. For example, the 55K/sq. mi. Paris number that gets thrown around is specifically for the core of the core.

I think you're presuming a lot there - for example, while Manila has its problems, there's a reason people want to be there rather than the provinces. I certainly don't think it would be a better city if you took its ~13M people and spread them out further, especially considering they mostly can't afford cars.