Been going down the rabbit hole on urban planning channels, out of curiosity given my suspicion that they are being pushed to the forefront as a Trojan horse to the Agenda 21 end goal.
Having cities be less car centric is not something I oppose, but those who are pushing for this model always use cities that just so happen to have a greater amount of racial homogeneity than the typical US cities. They just seem to think that they only factor to account for is the city layout, and nothing else.
For example, this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGjc-gsh834
The guy brings up 3 cities, Seattle, Atlanta, and Detroit. One of these things is not like the other. Guess which one? And guess which one was considered more "walkable?" Yes, Seattle. Do you think he was going to be willing to address the elephant in the room on racial demographics? Nope.
Gee, I wonder if there is going to be less desire to build for "walkability" if people are afraid to walk around the neighborhoods.
It is not so much that cities with racial diversity could never have better design for walkability, but let's not kid ourselves about the cause and effects at play. When you are soft on crime, people are going to respond in other ways. If there is no movement to fix the crime issue, people will seek other ways around the issue. Thus, we get more and more car centric city designs by voters and those who are otherwise unwilling to deal with the crime issue.
Maybe I am speculating in some ways. But I know that the US has far different demographics than many of the cities that are brought up as positive examples. So even if these advocates got everything they wanted in changing the city design, I would not expect the end results to turn out just like a city in Japan or the Netherlands.
Yes, I am skeptical that making a city more "walkable" will somehow reduce crime by itself. Again, they fail to account for demographics.
In fact, maybe as some of these examples become less and less homogenous, we may see crime issues surface. You know, the very issue we are promised becomes less with a walkable city. Yes, there is a theory about "eyes on the street" that claims walkable cities have less crime due to their walkability. I will not be shocked if this theory also does not account for demographics.
In short, demographics is far more important than these people would have you think. In fact, I am quite willing to bet that most of them are more leftist and therefore would adamantly deny that this could be a factor at all. Because that would go against their ideology of their urban planning vision being the panacea to many issues.
Due to that ignorance, I have a hard time taking them seriously even when they make good arguments about city planning. You have to account for all factors.