The typical dissuasion of proposals for the planning of a new town founded on principles of local sustainability (through increased individual liberty and greater access to a restored profusion of native resources), will often revolve around debasing the need for such an experiment. The question, I feel, has is not whether or not the experiment is necessary but rather why wouldn't we invite such experiments to better our standards and inform our socio-cultural model. Instead of legislation that precludes the trial of alternative patterns of development, almost entirely, why not entertain very many experiments of this sort through private investment (or even better through the democratic process and a vote) and voluntary participation? This would generate a prodigious catalog of social trial and error, not to mention a store of data and a landscape with wonderful potential for research. What we have successfully done in America, is cut off the natural social appendages of society, that is the grass roots method of town-making. You have no realistic, profitable, option to build a tightly-knit neighborhood that excludes vehicular traffic for the safety of your children and the ease of your senses.
One might argue that safety from fire and pestilence is a primary reason for low density housing, and they could very well backup such an argument by citing incidence of devastating plague throughout history. This would be a reasonable dissuasion, were it not for sanitary standards and building code enforcement which are entirely apart from limitations on neighborhood density. We forget that the old fashion of waste disposal was to toss refuse into the street; literally dumping on our doorsteps. This was the cause for disease, creating conditions where human and animal fecal material was in direct and extended contact with the population, and it was ground into the pavement and combined with rotting food to form what was essentially a biological weapon. Look at modern day under developed cities around the world, particularly in Southeast Asia, and Africa, and you will find open sewers in the street and disease much the same as conditions in Middle Age European towns. You could say that the closest thing to a tightly knit community that many of us experience is the hallways and classrooms of primary school, and college or university. For a person in the discussion of town planning to ignore the benefits of increased density in society, especially whence autos are removed access from the streets, they would have to confute the beneficial social product of public-school social interaction, and the intellectual exchange brought about on the college campus. The synergism of community is one of its greatest attributes. They would also have to refuse the notion that the halls and campus of schools are safe refuge from injury or death by automobile. We can create cities that limit access to cars, thereby freeing our children and elderly to wander about the streets in relative safety. The increased daily interaction among young and old might also be considered a betterment to society as a whole, and a healthful alternative to video games and senior nursing homes.
It is possible to preserve access for emergency vehicles, especially if we utilize such equipment but at a reduced size. Cities such as Tokyo use smaller emergency vehicles to reach farther into tightly woven communities. You would find that in a city preserved outside the reach of private autos, the need for enormous brightly lit signage is eliminated as this is a necessity only when trying to catch the attention of speeding motorists. The wide roads, turnouts, curb cuts, building setbacks, and enormous distances from one development to the next become useless and even prohibitive to the health of an auto-free city. The immediate benefits from eliminating the need for new road/highway construction is realized in fiscal savings. Less tax payer money is spent on maintenance of the roads, and the possibility presents itself for selling land on the road shoulder, or the enormous areas of town locked up in setbacks and parking lots, for infill development.
Can you imagine the money for schools and public transit, eased stresses of commuters, the decreased noise and pollution, and the pleasant environment to be bred by such a reinvented space. Even the financial demands placed on individuals for auto maintenance, insurance, and fuel would be immediately eliminated. You would be able to sell your car for scrape, OR if provision were made by the city there may be a market for taxi business though this would deteriorate the safety of children in the streets. Also imagine the simple pleasure of having a wide thoroughfare for biking to and from work and free of the danger from autos.
I hope you can see the possibility that presents itself in the freeing of our lands and the removal of the requirements laid on use by the auto. There has not been a choice to include or remove the auto for decades, it has been law that they are included in the vast majority of American cities. But, we can exercise our democratic rights and promote legislation to allow alternatives at the local level. When a few alternatives are exhibited alongside the existing model we will be able to easily observe the distinct rift between two different types of development, those beholden to the auto and those that reject its primacy.
(I realized after writing this that it begins on one point and ends on an entirely different point, and I'm sorry for this, but will continue to refine both points and offer complete explanations and descriptions)
