What modern conveniences are the least we need?

[hunter]

155. I've been thinking about this since I first posted in this thread.

It's entirely possible to achieve high density urban neighborhoods where you can "grow huge gardens with flowers, fruiting vines, and vegetables."

I live in a neighborhood of single family homes and apartments. The population density is fairly high because many of the homes are occupied by extended families. Typically this will be a couple, both of them working, grandparents who look after the grandchildren, and a few cousins (biological or otherwise) rounding out the mix. Many of these grandparents are immigrants to the U.S.A.. They came here to work and raised financially successful children while living in much rougher neighborhoods than ours.

If you chose to live here you could have a house with a large garden, the garden exceeding the square footage of the house. If you didn't want a larger house or garden, but you didn't want to share common walls with neighbors, you could live in an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU or granny flat). If you are comfortable living in a nice apartment with a balcony large enough for a few potted plants you could do that too.

The biggest problem in our neighborhood is all the cars. Almost every working person has a car. Street parking can be a nightmare at times. We are also exactly a mile away from the nearest restaurants, coffee shops, and grocery store. Public transportation isn't all that convenient. If we could rebuild our city so that car ownership was mostly unnecessary we'd have a lot more room for gardens, bicycle paths, neighborhood coffee shops, markets, and public transportation improvements.

Our oldest child owns a house with a garden in a big city. The neighborhood was built before car culture was established. There's good public transportation and everything you might need in your daily life is within easy walking distance. The problem I see with the neighborhood is the extreme gentrification. The larger homes in the neighborhood sell for one to two million dollars apiece which severely limits the diversity of the people living there. This also limits population density because many of the wealthier people who live there are intolerant of living arrangements beyond "two parents plus one or two children" even if they, as solidly Democratic Pride Flag waving liberals, leave those concerns unvoiced.