Here's what some of it would look like.
More pics here
http://www.greggirard.com/work/kowloon-walled-city--13
One of the things that kept Kowloon Walled City interesting and afloat is the fact that it was renowned as a place to go for unlicensed medicine. The opposite of what you're suggesting is the case. If there is no central authority which rounds people up for not competing in the officially cartel sanctioned way, then prices drop.
Yes, coercion built your example and you can tell plainly by the fact that everything is laid out in a grid, there's a lot of wasted space, and the only real thought put into how that modern grid-city is going to operate was thought put into how severe a punishment will be meted out for breaking arbitrary rules.
Think about how ridiculous the "who will build the roads" argument is when you connect it to a modern city: not a single large modern city in the world is easy to get into and out of. The only ones that are easy to travel to are the ones that had the wisdom not to obliterate their rail systems.
I think in a free city you'd see a lot more movement toward intelligent transportation systems. Grid layout roads would immediately be seen for the farce they are. They're nothing more than a way for the state's monopoly on postal service to be able to cut their loss rate down under tar-and-feather levels.
In reality, people don't want to live on grids - you can see that in older city designs, but also in non-urban settings. Both historically and today. Historically because our grid-layout farms in the US are not the way things are in Europe or China... older civilizations worked things out in a much more fluid manner, before the state was dictating that everything had to have frontages in line with some bureaucrat's personal pet peeves. And today in that modern subdivisions are never grid layout... people want to live on winding streets.
So your rural picture of living isn't the way things would be, either, IMO.
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