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I recently made the choice to go from the suburb to urban environment, and while I have to say that personally, it has been way better.

While I do pay more for rent, I do have a more enjoyable day. No commute. Walking distance everywhere of importance. Cool back-drop.

So, the ultimate question then, given what we have, how do we scale this up?

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I'll tell you what doesn't work. Overbuilding the place. Staten Island is a tragic example of this. In Manhattan, it's like they're repaving the streets with park.

You need a certain amount of density. But the overriding purpose of the density is to be able to cram more stuff-you-want-to-do near your house.

Also, keep in mind that the "stuff" in stuff-you-want-to-do can be replaced with "people".

Yup. This has been borne out in studies of high-rise buildings as well - they just don't work to efficiently house large numbers of people, it ends up cheaper overall to put people in traditionally-sized houses.

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