The difficulty of being an urbanist right now is that we need TWO urban strategies: 1. Knowledge industry led growth for declining regions 2. Affordable housing for cities where knowledge industries have pushed up rents It's really hard to make this one compelling message.
It's not that hard when you realize that (1) bad zoning meant to favor a certain kind of single-family home, middle class lifestyle and (2) overly complex/onerous regulations that leave big developers in the catbird seat are keeping both types of cities from adjusting