If only we would have stopped when auto centricity made sense

By CHARLES MAROHN
…
In addition to the interstates [if it had ended there], we have built state highways, regional highways, inter-city roadways and intra-city roadways. Again, if it had ended there…
…
Now we sit in 2011, keenly aware (at least the readers of this blog) that we have built more transportation infrastructure than we have the remotest chance of being able to maintain. All of this auto-mobility has failed to create places sufficiently productive to justify the ongoing expense of their own maintenance. We are a throw-away society, but it is hard to throw away two generations of infrastructure. What to do?
Many of us understand that our places need to be more productive. To correct our financial imbalances, we need to get a higher return on our public investments. Our approach needs to change, to mature in response to our greater understanding of the financially-precarious position we are in. We need to have more productive places. Stronger towns.
One of the simplest steps in creating a higher return in a neighborhood is to restore the neighborhood mobility options these places were originally built with. While this includes things like sidewalks, street trees and human-scale lighting, it also includes reducing the dominance of the automobile on local streets.
When streets are auto-only, the adjacent land pattern reacts by becoming less dense and less productive (a lower rate of return). When automobiles share neighborhood space with other forms of transportation, especially in places where those other forms actually dominate, the adjacent land pattern reacts by becoming more dense and more productive (a higher rate of return). We need more productive places.
…

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2011/2/22/which-came-first.htmloldId.20110307111909366