> replace them with low rise cohousing communities
I agree with almost everything you say but this. Why low rise? With high rises, we can use less space for housing and we would have more space for parks, libraries, and greenery.
Probably one of two things, one of which I believe is a mistaken correlation:
* High-rises block more of the sky, making it not seems as worthwhile to go outside.
* Mental detachment from the local area.
The second one is what I've only in the past year or so realized myself. I used to live on the 3rd floor of a 3-floor building, and my apartment had a front and back entrance. The front entrance went to inside stairs out to the front of the building, but the back entrance when straight outside to a wooden porch, then had wooden steps down to ground level. Where I am now, only on the 5th floor of 24, there's only one entrance, to a hallway where I take the elevator to go down and outside.
At my old place, I regularly went outside to do whatever on a whim. Nowadays, it's a really rare thing. And while there is a low-rise/high-rise correlation, I think it's the patio and the stairs, vs the hallway and the elevator that actually caused it. Having so much more distance between inside and outside creates an emotional distance where you don't even think about the outside, let alone decide whether or not to bother.
I've yet to live in one, but I'm thinking if the high-rises have balconies, it would create the same effect as that patio did for me.
When I saw low rise, I mean about four stories, maybe up to six. The height of Copenhagen, say. It produces a much more humane built environment and much less interior hellscape.
I agree with almost everything you say but this. Why low rise? With high rises, we can use less space for housing and we would have more space for parks, libraries, and greenery.