>> "Maybe we simply come up with better ways to build and design cities..."
Reading that, I can't help but think that the canonically best methods for how to "build and design cities" have been pretty well understood for decades [0], if not much longer [1]. We in America have just been doing it wrong on purpose for quite a while (perhaps in order to goose suburban construction and automobile sales?) So the problem isn't lack of knowledge-how, but rather one of political organization to wrest control of the built environment from the groups and organizations that presently control it.
Reading that, I can't help but think that the canonically best methods for how to "build and design cities" have been pretty well understood for decades [0], if not much longer [1]. We in America have just been doing it wrong on purpose for quite a while (perhaps in order to goose suburban construction and automobile sales?) So the problem isn't lack of knowledge-how, but rather one of political organization to wrest control of the built environment from the groups and organizations that presently control it.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_Ame... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8090190