We live in an age when the most unobjectionable and necessary ideas for progress can give rise to paranoia and fear. If the most innocuous, unoriginal possible idea can fuel paranoia, how can we hope to have a sensible discussion about the future of our places?
I wonder what it would be like if we planned out cities to have underground transport from the get-go? Basically leveled an entire area, built tunnels for all sorts of infrastructure in a meaningful way (imagine building the perfect city in sim-city approach) and then built everything on top of that again. Basically instead of digging tunnels we’d basically let the ground floor be tunnels and build on top.
Obviously wholly infeasible, but if you were to build a city for 1-3 million people it wouldn’t be unreasonable.