That said, criticizing land use strategies as ineffective because it is “not exactly a groundswell movement” only idenifies achallenge not an eventuality. Professionals are overcoming in real ways. Transit-oriented development was not even in our lexicon twenty years ago. We now have regional plans for many metro areas awaiting implementation, but need government to stop shift huge subsidies for auto-centric infrastructure toward new priorities, and to adopt codes and policies that promote walkable transit-oriented places.

That having been said, this MIT report is more full of holes than Swiss cheese. For one, the authors don’t seem to understand that the “cities not sprawl” strategy reduces car trips by other means in addition to just higher densities.

Using this report to say “look, we need cleaner sources of energy too” is fine. Using it to say “we shouldn’t bother densifying because that’s not the answer” would be deeply flawed.