Well, if your suburbs are truly spread out, that can be a problem, at least in the short term. You’d expect over a 20-year period people would shift around to where THERE jobs were, especially if there is little difference from one suburb to another.
And especially if nobody puts money into improving the inter-community road system.
My county has a pretty good road system, so getting around within it isn’t too bad.
Anyway, the only reason the city works is that it already had a critical mass. But most cities are bigger than they need to be for that critical mass, and we’d be better off if there were 10 times as many cities, more evenly spread out.
I have to confess, I dislike cities. I’ve never lived in one, have no interest in one, don’t even like to visit them much. I do like the idea of being able to live and work and shop without needing a car, but I live in a large, populated county (we have 400,000 people) so we are like a city in the sense that we have major employment, shops, restaurants, all different kinds of housing, public transportation, and a decent road system.
I realise that smaller communities don’t have all of this.
I agree with you to a point. I think smaller cities are the way to go. The Twin Cities are just like that; it’s not like New York or Los Angeles where you’re just lost in a huge mass of people. The great thing is, with modern technology, you can put a city just about anywhere. About four hours west of here, the Sioux Falls area has seen huge growth lately. So, we could see a country of smaller cities, which would probably be the ideal.