Suburban density has been the norm for most of human existence until the last century. Not everyone prefers to live in crowded dirtty noisy "exciting" environments. Stress shortens lifespan.
Suburbia is a postwar invention, enabled by and designed for the automobile. We have not lived in habitats made of subdivisions, cul-de-sacs, collector streets, and parking lots for "most of human existence."
You may be thinking of the traditional town, which is characterized by pedestrian scale, mixed uses, and continuous structures right up to the sidewalks of narrow streets, engaging pedestrians instead of boring them with "open space."
Walkability was not a novelty for the young and childless. It was how you got your kids to school and yourself to work or the grocery store. Mixed use wasn't about "exciting." If you prohibited commercial uses for miles around your house, you'd have a hell of a time buying milk.
About the only thing a traditional neighborhood shares with suburbia is single-family houses. In most other ways it's the polar opposite: its defining characteristics are what suburban zoning prohibits. It would be a huge win for urbanists to reform modern suburbia in the image of the traditional town. The Bay Area's housing capacity would skyrocket. Planning based on minimized travel needs and a redundant, load-balanced street grid would significantly soften the impact of growth on traffic.
Turning this [0] into more of this [1] would be immense progress. You don't have to build Manhattan.
No, not everyone prefers that. But over 70% either does prefer it or has no preference.
There is more than enough land for that 30% who want a suburban house. They should just leave the rest of us our 1% of the land to build high density housing.
