The other side of that coin is that cities provide high-density housing because it is the only way to get enough income in tax revenues to provide services to all the people who come in from OUTSIDE the city to work there. You want to live in a bedroom community and commute into your highrise office building... and still have the fire department come and help you get out of the building in the event of a fire? Then you need a LOT of people, living very close together, paying their taxes, to fund that service for you. Because your taxes in your bedroom community are not helping the city pay their costs to provide you with a safe environment. (I think there is also an age factor here... young people are used to being closer together - school, dorms, parties, social activities, etc - and eventually move out to where there is more room and less interaction as they get older. But I'm not really gonna make that case here in this post.) People will continue living in high density housing only because they have to...