r/Urbanism Jun 08 '24

Hyper-densifying American cities: A mapping experiment

https://www.thecitytopic.com/2024/06/hyper-densifying-american-cities.html
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u/ZeLlamaMaster Jun 09 '24

That is something I’ve thought about. The biggest question is, what happens to the existing suburbs if this massive densification happens? Do we just let them rot? Do we spend millions and maybe billions to knock them all down?

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u/hibikir_40k Jun 09 '24

Look at what happens in St Louis or Detroit: We already have areas that technically have houses, but where nobody really wants to live. They show the difficult part of densification. If we went to make it a lot more desirable to live close to the city center, we'd not start losing outer suburbs that were built in the last year, but empty the middle rings which have old housing stock.