Kit Allwinter

I think a lot of rural folks don't get why the whole "it's illegal to build this type of walkable dense urbanism" thing ultimately impacts rural places. If our few walkable dense city areas are "museumized" by regs that make it illegal to build new ones, they become luxury items. Living in Chelsea is a global luxury product partially because you can't build a new Chelsea-shaped neighborhood anywhere in the US. If STL, Albany, and Bakersfield had similar neighborhoods, Chelsea would only be the best of many. But because they don't, it's simply the best the US has to offer. Consequently, you have people clamoring to get there because it is the most objectively desirable iteration of urban life ever created in North America. If Peoria had a "Chelsea-style" neighborhood, maybe Peoria's brightest kids wouldn't run off to NYC or whatever. The market very clearly wants more walkable dense urbanism, but because it's illegal to build now, people flock to the few places where such urban design is now grandfathered in. This is one major factor in rural and small-city "brain drain" if I were to guess. Furthermore, if the cost of desirable urban neighborhoods goes up, people get priced out. What do they do? They often wind up living in less-desirable parts of cities, barely hanging on -- until they say "screw it" and go for the next-best-thing after Chelsea: Walkable dense "quaint country towns." If you can't afford Chelsea, Montpelier ain't so bad, and Boulder CO will do. I.e. if cities like Des Moines could have a truly dense, walkable portion of the city that was pleasant and beautiful, maybe Vermont wouldn't have turned into a giant yuppie haven where you the median home price is $300k.