Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities
No, they don’t.This is a classic example of listening to what people say vs observing what they do. And it’s a good lesson in product development. Ask your users “do you want X?” And the answer is inevitably “yes”. Ask them “do you want A or B?” And you’ll start to get a better approximation of user behavior. Better yet is observing actual behavior.In this case Americans have chosen the suburbs in droves.Americans want walkable areas in close proximity to the exact kind of house they live in now with all that entails: large single family house on a large lot with their 2+ cars.People would don’t love in the US may not realize just how large the lots are most Americans live on. In Australian cities a quarter acre block was once the dream. More typical now is half that.You will find areas in Atlanta where the lot size is one or even two acres.It’s only the older typically East Coast cities that have anything remotely approaching the density you might see in Europe.