A big difficulty of building a new city in the US is that, in the age of the car, we&#x27;d not build anything dense enough to feel like a city. I live in a metro area that has a bit over a million people, but in no way does it feel anything like a European city, NY or SF. Without any pressure that makes land expensive, we build wide, single family houses on half-acres.<p>Just look at the difference between SF and the rest of the bay: SF is interesting because space really is limited, and it&#x27;s old enough to have been built before the car took the US by storm.<p>So I have little hope for a place like Detroit, KC, Austin or Chattanooga to ever grow to become an interesting city without some new, technological pressure that makes us all want to minimize car use.