>>1882842>No, they'll just trim a fuck ton of fat.This will most likely be a very slippery slope with tons of grease applied on the floor.
Some cities might "trim the fat" with control and steady pace, but many other cities will pull a Detroit/Baltimore and chop their heads off by accident because they slipped while trying to quickly chop off their belly fat with a dull axe. Budget cuts are super nasty and often chaotic, but add a giant slow-to-act bureaucratic city government into the mix, and it's going to suck. This chaos may cause an endless cycle of migrations and lower profits in cities until they're empty husks. Besides the famous examples of Baltimore and Detroit, America is already full of empty "zombie cities" that turned into ghettos (especially in the Midwest and Rust Belt). We already know what can happen to cities with no money
I think we may be underestimating just how strong the internet will be for culture and society. A lot of gen-X'ers complain that kids these days are in their own "virtual island" looking down at their phones all day long; the future will be stationary people preferring everything at their fingertips, not brick-and-mortar visits. Physical buildings will still play a part, but it will be much less desired or important for our pleasure or entertainment.
>Once it all shakes out they'll be much smaller and denser, but better. At what point does a "much smaller and denser" city stop being a city?
