I generally don't bother to engage Kotkin, but there is no stark choice between suburban and urban* and urban living does not equal condo in a skyscraper. More than that, there are a variety of preferences out there and it's dumb to read polls on issues like this in the way he does. There is no one way.
Anyway, for the billionth time, the urban hellhole revolution I promote does involve improving certain elements of infrastructure and it also involves getting rid of the creeping suburbanization policies which make urban hellholes difficult to build even in urban hellholes, but for all of you suburb lovers it just involves reducing some of the worst elements of recent suburban design by removing policies which mandate those elements. Nice, walkable, if still largely car-centric, neighborhoods with good transit links are desirable and command a premium in many areas, and they're still suburbia. You can keep your car, and your kids can walk to the playground and when they get older take the train to the urban hellhole where they can get up to no good as is expected.
*Yes, DWD, I know there are rural places too, but the land use, transportation, and zoning issues aren't especially interesting or complicated in places with lots of empty space.
