But what I wouldn't do is go somewhere to blow up random civilians. Even if it was effective. And I certainly wouldn't pretend that God wanted me to do it.

Are we discussing the behaviour of governments, or you personally? Because you start out by saying you'd never do something that the USA routinely does (drone strikes) and does in ways that no other country does. So if this is meant to be some kind of pissing match between the USA or Iran then Iran wins, as would basically any other country.

Iran with nukes is more war, not less. And if there is going to be a war, I want the US to win it, because in the end, we'll at least try to do the right thing, and failing that, we'll leave

Iran with nukes is probably just Iran with nukes, same as lots of other countries that have nukes but don't invade random other places. But you keep on believing in American exceptionalism if it makes you feel better. The rest of us will mentally place the USA right where it belongs - rock bottom on the peace tables.

New York is another. Ultra-high-density communities may not be common in the US -- but the ones that do are exist are, well, kinda' a big deal.

But -- oh, yeah! -- we were talking about city planning as relates to lower-income folks. And the thing is, even though you and I might consider it impossible to get to work, buy groceries, &c. in much of the country without a car, there are still people doing that by necessity. My brother-in-law used to take his bicycle on the bus and sleep on a bench until his shift started, because the bus routes he needed shut down long before his shift started. When city planning is done in a way that assumes everyone is going to have a car, what you get is people left behind by the system. If you're lucky, they can manage to hold down jobs anyhow -- if you aren't, you have more folks who need safety-net features much more expensive than public transportation.

Don't know why I want to feed the troll -- and explicitly not accepting the assertions I don't challenge here, but...

You talk about "traffic flow" -- but think about this for a minute. You're proposing to take a very high-population, dense chunk of city -- plugged into the rest of that city's transportation network -- and move it out into the middle of nowhere.

Have you looked at the level of car ownership in high-density areas recently -- particularly in lower-income high-density areas? How exactly do you expect folks to get to work or school when they're suddenly no longer in an area with transit access? (And without that, how do you expect folks to work, or go to school to improve their circumstances? Would you rather be buying the same number of heads worth of homeless shelter, and getting no tax base at all)?

Hell. I'm in the rich part (financial district) of downtown Chicago, and less than half my neighbors if that own cars if that; being in walking distance from work (and directly next to a stop for every single L line) is why people pay to live in the Loop. Owning a vehicle is expensive in a city -- heck, parking wherever you're going to is expensive in and of itself, as is having a place to park that vehicle at home (in my building, a parking spot costs about $30k to buy, or rents for upward of $200/mo). You can't take folks who can't afford decent housing unassisted, move them away from their jobs, and expect them all to be able to buy, maintain and fuel vehicles -- and park those vehicles near their jobs in the city -- when they were only barely making ends meet beforehand. It's insane.

Gotta love these anti-science pseudoskeptics.