Everything in this video is so very apt. The entire thing sums up my perspective on urbanism perfectly, but here are some personal highlights:
Let’s talk about the core of what urbanism is, which is the arguments for why cities are good… When people live closer together, you make it way easier to provide all kinds of utilities and services at lower cost… cities are fun and no one needs to apologize for thinking that cities are social places… they’re anti-anti-social; they foster connections between humans…
Cities are where opportunity is. Creative opportunities, career opportunities, and the networks you find in cities are indispensable…
Cities are diverse. If diversity is not your thing then cities just might not be for you. But I think diversity, broadly speaking, is as important for having a healthy resilient city as biodiversity is for having a healthy resilient rain forest.
Okay, we covered the argument for cities, so let’s spend a little time talking about things cities aren’t doing very well… First, there are just way way way too many cars in cities. I’m not going to go through all the externalities, but: CO2 emissions,
particulate emissions, noise, all the impervious surface cars require with all the related runoff issues and urban heat island effects… Freeways are bad, and they just don’t belong in cities. They’re usually monuments to racism… We should be treating motor vehicles as the health hazard they are instead of giving drivers unfettered access to our streets and letting them operate their vehicles, however idiotically they feel like they can get away with.