I really wish we could just somehow make neighborhoods be more like college campuses, but unfortunately that whole model is built on people all working (or schooling or whatever) in the same place and more or less committing to not moving for four years. (It could also be relying on people not having kids, but if anything I would expect the college campus model to be better at having local daycare services and safe, stimulating places for kids to play, so I don’t think that’s it.
Which aspects are you thinking about that college campuses have and dense urban environments don’t?
A lot more “third spaces” that function well as such, better sense of community/higher trust, green space that actually functions well as green space. Room and board + campus maintenance + activity fees combined seem to be far more modest than the cost of living in an urban area (maybe because it avoids the problems that come with having to pay for a safe neighborhood in a positional-goods type of way by being strongly selected for IQ + consciousnessness? Idk).
A lot of this is just describing, like, suburbs and small towns. Nothing stops you from continuing to live in a college town after you finish college, and there are lots of small towns with a similar “feel.”
This, I think, is where @jadagul’s point about colleges being selected for people like me becomes relevant. Plus small towns tend to lack the classes and guest speakers and general traits of academia that make it stimulating. But yes, “small Minnesota town filled with rationalists that has good access to infrastructure, jobs, etc” would be more or less ideal.
I sympathize with you and have considered urban planning from this angle, constructing medium-density communities-within-communities. Just put me in charge of the country as Technocratic Dictator Central Director of the North American Union and I’ll get it sorted.
I’m a good person, and there is little reason to worry about how this might be involved in plans to build an unstoppable super-nation. Plus, I assure you the prediction markets for the National Delegation will have my back on this matter.