Banks Want It Both Ways
When I lived in the suburbs of New Orleans my street was a U that connected to the main highway. There was a discussion here of how the suburbs would fail because they weren't dense enough to support mass transit.
My neighborhood had single family houses of 1400-2300 square feet. Each one was about thirty feet away from the street and sixteen feet apart side by side. The street was probably the standard width (whatever that is, maybe 24 feet wide). I imagined that we all would agree to stop using cars and fill in the street with new houses or apartment buildings. They could be wider than the street because part of our front yards was a city sidewalk that was about five feet away from the street. That would mean that many houses could fill in the wasteful space of the streets.
If this scenario were possible how many people would feel it was a good idea? There still could be personal houses separate from other peoples houses, but; they would be in much denser neighborhoods. Instead of one-hundred houses in that neighborhood there would be one-hundred-fifty houses. Would that even be enough people per square mile to make public transit pay for itself? Would bankers even take that into consideration? Would bankers not want to give loans for such properties because they didn't have driveways or even a parking lot for the neighborhood? I wonder.
I have read the reports that prove that housing nearest good public transportation is more valuable than housing far from public transportation. What will come first in this world, better public transportation or more dense housing? I don't see any agreement in this in the eyes of the general public. It isn't even in their consciousness. It is possible that banks could be leaders in this transportation revolution if they took the report about transportation costs into consideration for all of their home loans and actually promoted lower rates to people who didn't own cars. On the other hand, banks make plenty of money on car loans.