If a solution requires that we maintain every road that has been built, that we rehab every leaky pipe, that we hold on to all the neighborhoods that have been developed – and in most places today, these are prerequisites for any conversation – then there is no viable solution. Our cities are going to contract geographically; we will have fewer lane miles, fewer pipes, and less urbanized land in three decades than we do today. This is built into the math, shifting the situation we face from problem to predicament.
