When I visited, I found Seoul to be an amazing city. While there was higher density there, I would not describe it as 'congested' because they had planning for how to manage (mostly) foot traffic.
I would be very happy if Sunnyvale/Santa Clara started to look a bit more like seoul.
I mean, California already has both a massive homelessness problem and a major housing shortage. The prices from the latter have driven a ton of migration out of the state. Is your solution to just do nothing?
It's sad that people assume density must mean mega cities instead of gentle density like Paris suburbs. You could double the Bay Area's density by approving duplexes, fourplexes, and sixplexes + a few more more apartment buildings.
All of these can look like they fit in the neighborhood too quite easily.
Have you ever been to Mumbai? Have you been inside their newer luxury buildings?
It has many issues, but the modern tall buildings in Mumbai are amazing and are the solution to many of their issues.
If the US would start to build new buildings like Mumbai or Singapore more Americans would realize just what luxury and space a condo could have!
Mumbai needs more walkability (through super blocks and such), better trash etiquette (more trash cans - especially for the middle classes new fascination with dogs), and it needs 1000x more livable square feet.
I would probably create a bridge or something over the slums. Cheap enough toll to not be much for the people living in the condos, but expensive enough those living in squalor below find it unaffordable. Then you could pretty much live your life going from middle class+ establishment to the next without having to think about the slums below. The bridge would also double as a shelter over any leaking tarp roofs below.
The “toll” to be on the bridge is the cost of ownership of motorized transport. Wealth segregation by neighborhood is also a thing. This segregation is executed similarly to how it is in North America or Europe.
FWIW, in Mumbai they differentiate a bridge to be road over water and a flyover to be road over other road or residence.
If you want your own undisturbed 10,000 sqft domain, like a British lord of old, you can move to Idaho. Or pay a huge premium to compete for a limited pool of available low density land.
