Anecdote of one. 36, wife and two kids. Have a quarter acre of land, a pool, and a 2600 sq ft house in a Tier 2 city for ~$200k. Why would I ever choose higher density and city living? I would not pay more for a lower quality of life (and distance means little to me, as I work from home and my kids don't go to school).
I happily bought my suburban home instead of living close to others in a condo or a townhouse.
Yep! This is the "smart for the individual, dumb for the group" type of a dilemma. It absolutely makes sense for you to do this, individually. As a society, it's rather undesirable for people to live this way. Your lifestyle is being subsidized by (mostly poorer) people living in dense areas [1], and by the externalities we all deal with: pollution from extra driving, lawn care (leaf blowers, gas powered lawn mowers, weed wackers, etc), otherwise unnecessary infrastructure (bridges, plumbing, electric lines, roads, sewage, etc.)
It doesn't make you a bad person to be taking advantage of bad policies. But cities do need to incentivize sustainable living over unsustainable suburban sprawl.
I don't disagree. Simply price what it'll cost me to live in low density housing away from other people and I'm happy to pay. I will pay whatever it costs to not live in a dense urban core (to your points about environmental impact, we own two Teslas, have solar panels on the roof, have an electric lawnmower, and consume most of our power on site).
Sprawl is not unsustainable if you internalize the external costs, and I'll argue it'll get cheaper as mobility moves to electric vehicles and trucks, new infrastructure (with higher longevity) is built in new subdivisions instead of trying to replace 100+ year old gas, water, and sewer mains, etc.
@village-idiot: To your deleted comment, yes, my Teslas have a carbon impact during their manufacturing, but it is less than the SUV and pickup truck we used to own. It is very difficult to have no impact whatsoever on the Earth; optimize the best you can.
Buying suburban for me would replace my 30m walking commute for a 1.5h driving commute, all for a yard I wouldn't have time to use with my commute. Not a good trade for me.
I also don't have any kids and won't be having them.
How old are you? I was quite sure that I wouldn't have kids, either, but I randomly met a nice girl who lived in the (urban) apartment upstairs from me and next thing I knew, I was 38, married, and watching my son being born. It comes at you fast and unexpected and it wasn't at all the life-ruining thing that I was sure it was when I was 28. Here in my early 40s, my only regret is not doing it earlier.
Fair points. My commute is 20 minutes (long enough for one NPR podcast and a Dunkin Dounts coffee on the way), and I only go into the office a few days each month. My employer even installed an EV charger for me!
FWIW, what works for you as a childless person is not super relevant to what works, in general. In the long term, earth will be filled mostly with people who have children.
I happily bought my suburban home instead of living close to others in a condo or a townhouse.