donald said:Why do you need to be crowded just to avoid travelling long distances? The two things are not logically dependent. They have been made so by the proliferation and ease of availability of passenger vehicles and fuel (viz. the evolution of extended and distant suburbs from the parent town that are made more readily habitable by ease of personal transport). But they need not necessarily be dependent. Are you saying it is inevitable that you have to be crowded to avoid travelling long distances?RonDawg said:If you think commuting in crowded conditions is unpleasant, how about living in close proximity to others, with shared walls, and having little private land space? The former is only for a few hours per work day; the latter is there all of the time when you're at home.
In most cases, the closer you get to the city center, the more expensive land becomes. The more expensive land becomes, the more likely you will see higher density housing.
Exceptions here in the US are cities that through economic circumstance have experienced severe de-population. You can get a house super, super cheap real close to downtown Detroit. Whether you'd want to live in such a neighborhood, and whether the house that comes with it (if there's a house left on that property at all) will require extensive work to be safely habitable is a different story.