>>1625664It's more like developers won't develop huge tracts of land unless they think the buyers can reach downtown. And then developers further out do the same thing. And none of them think about the future development further out because they have this vague sense that the government will just expand the highway if it's too small.
So you end up with these rotten inner rings that don't funnel to the highways fast enough and don't have regular arterial roads either because they were designed as a low-density outer rings. And the property values crash, but no one in the community will bite the bullet and re-develop as an inner-city residential area because that means widening streets and demolishing houses, and the city doesn't want to look like it's picking on poor people. So you get these half-assed light rail projects that don't widen the street, and don't cut down commute times but the same developers from before assume they're doing something and start redeveloping and raising the density and rent. But these same yuppies, who were raised in the burbs, don't know that light rail is bullshit and once they do they just use their cars anyway. And now the streets are clogged again, the highways are still clogged, the inner ring still sucks, and no one wants to ride the light rail because it didn't solve anything.
