Baro

In 10-50 years, the suburban lifestyle will simply collapse. The tax base can not support the needed transportation infastructure, let alone upkeep, let alone stupid commie hippie stuff like 'schools' or 'hospitals'. Also, there is NO oil crisis in the world. Longer travel times in less and less effecient vehicles can obviously go on for ever, fueled entirely by the owners sense of entitlement. When the crisis hits (well hits harder than it is now), car dependant nations will suffer greatly, enough to topple super powers.

How dare you! Telling a city it shouldn't sprawl is like telling a fat dieing person they should put down the tub of butter. That tub of butter/suburban life style TASTES good and it's their choice and they deserve it and how dare you try to save them from them selves. It isn't a matter of living or dieing, it isn't a matter of how long that lifestyle can last, it's a matter of 'preferance' or what 'feels good' at the time.

Why does a city have to grow OUT? The 'argument' between sprawl and real growth is like the 'argument' between fitness and sickness. A city is a living organism. Like nature, it should strive to be compact and muscular, not a cancer ridden pile of lazy fat. When a person is 500 pounds, they pay for it. It's hard to move, they are full of sickness, and they are horrible to look at. Just like a sprawling city, hard to move, full of crime, and horrible to look at. It's interesting how cities often so closely match the people that build them. In europe and japan, you have healthy people with efficient resource use and a sense of community, and their cities match. In north america you have fat people building fat cities, with their diet matching their construction methods, unhealthy.

Wow, interesting to see my home town as terrain in simcity4. Where'd you get it?