These are common points used by those who profit from dense cities, and are mostly false while sound logic.

> long distance travel

Travel for what? Take a look at some EU Rivieras, there is little "commuting" since a slice of people work (or could work) from remote, others work locally/nearby, people normally do not travel back and forth countless of time like in a dense city. I state that for personal experience having left a dense EU city for the Alps, yes, I do travel, but not more than the number of km/miles I've traveling in the city. Simply because many "regular trip" are far less needed here. For instance I do not buy grocery every days but every 15 days or so. Also I have room for p.v. to recharge my car, so I consume even less from the grid, travels are cheaper both in pure monetary terms than in pollution terms.

> limited public transport

Witch again it's a GOOD thing despite common (interested) narrative. Collective transport was effective back then when it was just to bring workers back and forth to the factory from their homes, so every working day only with nearly always at nearly complete capacity. It was then extended in an era where cars was very expensive and only very few can own one NOT BECAUSE it was efficient for that but to allow people who can't afford a car to travel anyway at a price they can pay, and it was heavily subsidized because of that. Then it became a business munging money both from their customer and the public, wasting enormous resources to allow the city to exists but being horribly inefficient. We need to move 24h a day, anyone with their own schedules, as a result collective transports can't completely satisfy the demand, so we have a mix of personal and collective transport means both typically under-utilized wasting even more resources.

Try to really think as an alien observing curious aliens from the orbit, you'll see how many resources a modern city eat just to exists, how many to get regularly updated and regularly at certain point in time get rebuild because at a certain point in time you can't evolve without big rebuilds. You need ENTIRE COUNTRIES just to build few cities. Modi in India think they can build 100 smart cities on the entire country resources. In central Asia most State can only have ONE city and so on, we do not see that because cities for us was ancient ad slowly changed, but an external observer see it very well, cities are a sink hole of resources for giving an utter life to most people. Their purpose in the modern era with modern logistic and IT? Just the service economy or keeping people owning less and less till nothing, salves of the services operated by few, modern Fordlandia equally distopic and equally untenable, a more broad description: https://kfx.fr/articles/2024-04-26-onnewdealexp-contrapolis/

> You don't have more time, again because of long travel time because of long distances.

Oh I have it. Because in a reasonably spread (meaning not too little dense nor too much) living the 15' city is already there, but not on feet, instead by cars. Most people living spread can do nearly anything in 15' car trips. And they are in nature, so they can have plenty of natural activities instead of consuming paid services for anything because in a modern city anything is a service on sail...

> You can stockpile, but you have to take conservation into account, and plastic packaging is, maybe unfortunately, a great solution for conservation.

That's right, but at what rates? For instance I buy some times per year significant batch of pig meat, I grind and salt and flavor it at home making my own sausages and freeze them in dedicate plastic, but not single-use, containers. I buy olive and sunflower oil but not in small bottles, instead in metallic containers around 10l some, 5l others. They got recycled as well. I tend to buy wine in demijohns from "nearby" producer one or two time per year, and bottle it at home, again it's glass and cork recyclable and normally reused. So yes, there is still plastic, but far less and generally not single use.

> Dense cities are quite efficient

Is efficient for you living in tall buildings than moving to others tall buildings typically with immense machines named metros, using such buildings for less than 12h/24? I call it ALL but inefficient...

> and not particularly reliant on small plastic packaging

So you do not eat ready made food, typically sold in some single use packaging while working downtown? Just for instance. You do not frequently buy grocery with plenty of plastic bags, mostly too thin to reuse?

> Many cities have markets at walkable distances that sell products in bulk.

You can also buy in bulk from a supermarket, but you need space to stockpile and in apartments, specially in modern ones, there is not much space. Not talking about the fact that's impossible have p.v. and heat pumps for anyone anyway... So essentially the full-electric new deal is nearly impossible in cities.

> You have to think twice before buying something

If I see my grocery records I've bought MUCH more back then in a dense city than now on mountains, really. Simply because I buy frequently ready made stuff than dropping their relative packages to the bin. Try a simple experiment: hold somewhere your packaging for a month (if you have enough space), you'll might be shocked by their volume.

Just for tea bags: I like green or white tea and I tend to buy metallic 1kg pot, they last for long. Yes, I need a bit more to clean anything but WFH it's not much an issue, in the end my waste is ZERO. Simply because having nature around I made compost, so the used tea leaves got dropped in nature, where they do not pollute. While with bags they need to be dropped to the bin, creating a certain amount of waste per day. Really, try experimenting collecting the waste you can without odors etc for a month or at least a week, then try measure it and project the same for 1000 of you per year try playing about changing habit in this model.

Cities of the past, where people just live in "wall homes, little equipment" and tend to work "just downstairs" do not exists anymore, there are the theoretical "strong towns" who are not there and they are not compatible with today economy anyway. Modern buildings just for piped water, electricity, sewers, elevators, fire safety, seismic safety, HVAC consume MUCH MORE raw resources than small homes and makes people consume more. They are really only needed for financial capitalism, against nature and humanity.