Quote Originally Posted by Buttons View Post
This is different than simply removing freeways. New York does have freeways and sprawl across three states. There are freeways that can take you from White Plains to Manhattan. Most of the fastest growing cities in the US are more freeway centric.
That's right. Lots of places have freeways. But New York is one of those unusual cities that has an alternative arrangement: heavy investment in fixed-route mass transit. It provides a countervailing force that challenges sprawl and entropy. In other words: It provides a strong center.

Where is that strong center in Cleveland or Detroit?

Again, other advocates of rapid transit have said it time and again: "We want a choice. We don't want to HAVE to drive everywhere. If we're going to live in a city, we want some of the amenities of living in a city, namely, driving when we choose to."

And the urban design corollary to that is that we shouldn't have bent over backward over the last 50 years to ensure that downtown is completely surrounded by freeway. Maybe we can start replacing some of the street grid we lost to that overexuberance.

Of course, you can bet dollars to donuts they'll botch the job.