You could say the same for suburban development. Public transport? lmao

In fact it is also cheaper to build/maintain plumbing and electricity and internet delivery for high density than low density housing, simply because you need less of it.

but it's hard to then build the services that this many people need

The idea is that there are the same amount of people on the island.

Island 1 might need 2 small schools to serve the top and bottom of island.

Island 2 could put one large school in walking distance of living building.

One large school is much cheaper than multiple smaller ones.

Same with things like fire stations. You only need one around the living building on island 2. One station on island 1 might not be in range of all the homes.

So we should lift other zoning restrictions as well.

Allow people to start businesses in these buildings.

It's one thing to prevent boiling horses into glue next to a preschool, but it's entirely another thing to specify that a building cannot contain a barber shop because it's zoned for residential.

We have too much zoning in our country. Too many rules to allow the market to simply solve problems. Oh this neighborhood does't have a doctor's office? Sounds like a great place for a doctor to set up shop, assuming they're allowed.

Within the same building? Restaurants and bars and shops.at the bottom, services like doctors, and offices at the first few floors, then living space above that.

Also, good city zoning

Also, focus on people, not cars.

This is where city planning comes in.

As city gvt gives out permits to build high rises, they need to build the other infra around it.

Also, said rich developer cunts want to maximize their profit. People will pay more to be near where they need to be, be that public transport stops or schools, so they're already incentivized to build where there's good infra. As they start building more where there's no infra, the city will develop infra there.

The high-density buildings attract more people, which increases the tax base of the city, so there's more budget for infra.

If looking at American examples, look at NYC vs... Any big city in the south or mid-west, I guess? Idk, I'm not American. NYC is one of the very few cities in the US with actual good public transport. There's plenty of schools and hospitals too.

There are plenty of examples of this working just fine around the world, i have personally been to one of them and it's almost a magical place to be in.

It's not that hard to figure out the solution really, just tell drivers to suck a fat one and design around public transport instead. Build a railway into the countryside and surround every stop with a commercial area with housing around that, this is how the suburbs to the northeast of Gothenburg are constructed and it obviously works and results in some of the nicest places i've been in.