> if you look at a single location and ignore the multitude of other neighborhoods that aren't like that, you'll find that experience.

You specified a city, not a neighborhood, of a place I've never been.

There were plenty of worse places I could have picked in the city.

So, looking at Cityline Dr. Hah! Are you talking about the 'Residences at CityLine'? That's new construction clearly not following the traditional R1 requirements for setback that dominates much of US suburbia.

And at $600K+ it's far outside what most people can afford.

> Picking the right place to live, it's entirely possible to live car-free.

Sure. Streetcar suburbs like Oak Park, IL are a classic example of a suburb where people can live car free. Problems are 1) nearly all of them are too expensive for most people to have the choice to move there, and 2) zoning laws prohibit new construction.

And note that I said "easy to live comfortably without a car."

Give me an address in Richardson, then think about where the local preschool, playground, elementary school, pediatrician, library, grocery store, restaurants, green space, sports practice, doctor's office, dentist, optician, and hospital are.

Bonus points if you can meet up with friends at a bar, drink, and walk home at 11pm feeling safe. (Walk because you've had a few beers and don't want to risk a DUI.)

How long does it take to walk or use mass transit to get there?

And how much does it cost to buy a house there.

> And once again you bring up zoning laws and just completely forget how those exist.

Did you forget my discussion of how racism was an intrinsic component in American suburbia?

The laws about minimum lot sizes and preventing building apartment complexes in single-family neighborhoods was a direct response to keep black (and poor) people out.

> Our towns could be different if people wanted to change the laws, but the majority don't.

Isn't Texas one of the places that requires a supermajority to allow zoning changes? My research suggests a 3/4ths vote is needed - hardly a majority. (NC appears to require a 4/5ths supermajority?!)

Which means a town can't change its zoning even if a simple majority of the people want to change.

In any case, generations of bad urban planning policies based in no small part on racism mean most people think the only two options are "single-family suburbia" and "dense urban".

You yourself made that mistake.

> most people currently living in suburbia want suburbia.

Great! I don't want to change that! Suburbia is fine!

What I don't like that most people don't have a choice to live in a suburbia which isn't car-dependent.

I propose changing the laws to get rid of parking minima, and changing them to allow multi-family homes in R1-zoned area -- just like the suburb where I grew up.

For example, the Biden administration's Build Back Better Agenda is looking at using the same monetary tools that pushed the scale to the traditional post-war American suburb - federal funding - to remove restrictive zoning. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

If you approve of the democratic principles which lead the FHA to promote R1-zone suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s then you should approve of the same principles being used now to get rid of exclusive zoning.

> and suddenly city hall is packed with people ready to fight against it.

And only 25% of population can decide the future of city zoning. How do you know that represents the majority viewpoint?