There has been discussion lately about homebuyers en mass preferring low density suburban housing. There are many factors why more folk are moving to the suburbs, and it is hard to disentangle them to get to the most important explanations. While that is being somewhat relaxed, the history and bank inertia remains.
Folk tend to buy where they can get loans.
Consequently, cities have zoned consistent with bank mortgage policies, allowing only sprawl development to occur. Folk can only buy the housing that is built and being sold. Since money for housing development and rehab has been denied central cities, the housing there is run down, and much of it is occupied by the poor, with consequences to the schools, crime, etc. Cities have bulldozed neighborhoods to build freeways with devastating consequences. Freeways take out 1 or 2 blocks of housing, and exits and cloverleafs much more.