The most common question I receive by email is some variation of: what is the right density for a Strong Town? What is the magic number that makes all the math work and that we should plug into our zoning codes to get the optimum place? The act of asking such a question indicates to me that the sender (a) has not read much from our website or (b) has read from our website but not spent much time thinking about it. Either way, in the extreme triage that is my inbox, these emails rank pretty low.

Just before I went on vacation, Jim Kumon sent me another one (he gets a lot of these emails first now) and suggested, based on the number of times it has been asked, that I give it another go. Here’s the specific question this time:

Something that I think would be valuable for planners and everyone else, is to have a reference for how to build financially solvent towns at varying levels of density/size. What is the right kind of infrastructure for a town of 5000 with 800 people/sq mi, versus a town of 15000 with 2000 people/sq mi?

Let me restate the question: Something that I think would be valuable for planners and everyone else who finds it painful to think independently but instead to take comfort in misapplying “data” provided by others deemed experts (see parking codes as one of many examples) is to have a table of densities that will allow us to zone a Strong Town.

I hate density as a metric and whenever I hear someone talk about it my mind reflexively moves on to something more worthy of my time. Yours should too. Density is not our problem or our solution. Insolvency is our problem. Productive places are the solution.

Anyone who remotely comprehends the number of variables at play here would never ask such a ridiculous question. How valuable are the units? How well is the street maintained? What is the inflation rate for construction costs? What is the city’s bond rating? Will the association properly maintain the roof of the building? What will happen to the building across the street currently in probate? Does the city’s code empower NIMBY’s?

I could go on and on and on…. If density matters for anything, it is a byproduct of success, not its cause. And I’m not even sold on that.

Here’s how we should be thinking about this.