Originally Posted by
mconlonx
"Normative media images" is BS. Media reflects, it does not project.
I disagree. There is a certain rationality to avoiding driving that many people just ignore because their minds are geared toward image-management instead of independent reason in decision making. The only way many people would think, "I don't care what it will look like; I'm going to just bike or take a bus instead of driving," is if someone they saw and admired on TV exhibited that attitude first. People are simply inhibited by boundaries of what they expect will be received in a socially-favorable way. I don't think this was the case some decades ago. Probably before radio, people made decisions more independently of social-cultural role-modeling through media. They might have taken into consideration what their family members or peers might think, but the norms weren't as clearly defined in terms of widespread imagery. It's a hard topic to nail down, though, because there's no way to keep historical records of what people were thinking in the past.
Super high density cities, were everyone to move back to cycling distance from work, would bring with it a whole new set of issues, involving incredible levels of development to house and maintain a super-high density population. Storing that many bicycles, bicycle traffic, bicycle parking... Not to mention all the utility and transit upgrades. It's not impossible, but it won't happen quickly. Maybe it's happening now...
It is a mistake to think of cities changing so radically as LCF becomes more dominant. What's more likely is that we'd simply see traffic congestion decreasing and more local work, shopping, and recreational opportunities being created. Eventually, if traffic decreases enough, we could see outside lanes separated from motor-vehicle lanes by treed medians, but up to now 'road-narrowing' brings a public reaction akin to being choked to death.
Maybe more "super high density cities" like NYC will develop, but I think those will be the exception. I think most places will be the same as what we would call suburban sprawl today, except the sprawl will end up more bikeable/walkable, hopefully greener with more tree canopy, and more local work, shopping, and recreation.
There will be denser downtown areas, but they will not grow too dense because people will want to 'move to the burbs,' only the burbs will be biking distance away and the option to take transit will be more practical as well. How can such practically multimodal-scaled cities evolve from current levels of automotive sprawl? Answer: by local shopping centers evolving into mixed-use residential-commercial areas, which grow into downtown areas for their local surroundings, which are connected with other 'downtown' mixed-use areas of the larger municipality via transit and bike highways.