I agree with most of the author's points, however... isn't it too late to think about that, in the US?
I might be wrong, but I don't think a lot of new cities are still being built there, so it would be necessary to destroy city centers to re-build them in a more human-friendly way? I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Otherwise, I completely agree. The last time city centers were rebuilt here in France in large scale was in bombed cities after WWII, and they were transformed into car-friendly places (some of them really ugly). Only today are we trying to turn them back into pedestrian-friendly cities... but the wide avenues stay, it's better because there are less cars, but it's still not as nice as narrow paved streets (I'm thinking of the recent overhauling of Nantes' center, here).
It's not too late. Cities are constantly changing and reinventing themselves. Many cities have old industrial areas that are being converted to other uses, or very low density residential spaces that are being rezoned to higher density. Any time a neighbourhood undergoes change there's an opportunity to do it differently.
Vancouver's Olympic village (built from old industrial land) is an example of a brand new neighbourhood in a North American city built close to this form. It's not pedestrian only in width, but the streets through it are only a single car width wide.
1) It's never too late to do anything. The idea is not to build a city and for the people to come, but to change places, or make new centres, new places.
2) There are cities around the world (Christchurch, NZ and Detroit US as two examples) which are already suffering for various reasons. Detroit is the centre for this "placemaking" movement - how do we rebuild a failed city?
Its's not too late. Many cities are creating more human scale neighborhoods when it comes time to revitalize a run-down area (think warehouse districts)
I might be wrong, but I don't think a lot of new cities are still being built there, so it would be necessary to destroy city centers to re-build them in a more human-friendly way? I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Otherwise, I completely agree. The last time city centers were rebuilt here in France in large scale was in bombed cities after WWII, and they were transformed into car-friendly places (some of them really ugly). Only today are we trying to turn them back into pedestrian-friendly cities... but the wide avenues stay, it's better because there are less cars, but it's still not as nice as narrow paved streets (I'm thinking of the recent overhauling of Nantes' center, here).