> Maybe I worded things poorly, but I understood your point: everyone would want to live in high-density housing if only they were better informed of how great it is.

Would you want to stop using disposable plastic straws because of how awesome paper straws are? No. Would you want to stop using them if it was required to stop microplastics from appearing in your blood stream and organ tissue? Let’s imagine a positive answer for a moment.

Now, apparently there are people who consider abandoning plastic straws absolutely hands-down unthinkable sacrilege. So the natural question is: why? Let’s pretend their refusal to ditch plastic straws actually hurts not only theirs but also your own body and bodies of your children, so you really want to find out the answer.

Eventually we might find out that some people really hate paper straws because they become soggy quickly and give paper taste to their drinks. While I don’t think either argument against paper straws (which are, incidentally, not the only alternative) outweighs the harm from the prevalence of single-use plastic straws, I can at least understand the reasoning because I, too, can notice the taste and the sogginess.

That’s one analogy; so I want to know what that argument is with regards to high-density living. The arguments I heard so far are mostly misguided (no forests nearby!), refer to problems not specific to high density living (nosy neighbors!), and such.

> Many people know from experience what that life entails and want nothing to do with it.

Every time I talk about it in various crowds, online and off, all counter-arguments come exclusively from people who grew up in suburbia, smaller or sprawling low-density towns and cities, and they have a very skewed picture that is mostly a product of their imagination. If you have lived in a well-planned high-density (say at least 20 thousand people per square kilometer of residential area) city, you’d be the first!

> And yes, that includes the idealized fantasy version you present in other comments, even if that actually existed

As I wrote, the technology to live comfortably with little footprint is here—I didn’t mention it’s applied in practice much less evenly distributed.

And it is not applied in practice because it’s not popular, so such areas are simply not built.

And it’s not popular… Because? This is the question we’re addressing here. So let’s see what is the argument from you, as someone who lived in high-density urban areas with apparently adverse experience that is unique to those areas.

> Almost every apartment complex I've lived in has had one "nosy neighbor" that insists on gossiping about everyone's affairs and causing drama with everyone they can sink their social hooks into.

Did you ever have an issue with neighbors in sparser areas (like low rise apartment buildings or standalone housing)? I’ve had plenty. Shady people hanging around, people renting out flats or standalone houses to loud party goers, etc. Could it be that it isn’t about high or low density but about something else, like crime rates, mental health care, regulation of short term rentals, education availability, unemployment levels, poverty?

By the way, in my experience it’s significantly more acute in lower density suburbia and sparse cities because there’s few enough people that it feels not only rude to not engage but also unsafe because if a person whom you can expect to see periodically turns out to be unstable there may be no witnesses and/or the police may be too far away to respond in timely manner.

To sum up, while it doesn’t have much to do with higher density living, this is the only argument on the substance that you have put forward. Thanks!

> But that's not really relevant--you prefer cities and I prefer small towns. That's fine.

Not really, no. Assuming limiting humanity’s footprint is the only feasible option in the future, people like you will either be highly uncomfortable or sabotage the future of the planet. Neither is a good outcome.