But who actually wants to live like that? To live in a tiny property in a noisy city, to save a planet that you then have far less ability to explore and enjoy?
One way to answer that is "demand." People demonstrably do want to live in a lot of dense noisy cities, with cramped living quarters, high costs, etc. They put up with a lot in order to do so. NY, SF, London, Beijing, Etc. The old "no one goes there, too crowded" quip.
The counterargument (IMO) is that people want to live where be jobs, power, cultural elites, etc. Those can exist in suburban city plans, ancient city centres, etc. Some are nice. Many are not.
I would say that people are adaptable. The operative question probably isn't who wants to live like that broadly. It's who will choose to move there. That'll depend on issues that are usually outside the scope of planning. Proximity. Culture. Jobs. Finance... How WFH develops is highly relevant, for example.
Some things are not very amenable to "start small" approaches. Are tools in a planners realistic toolbox sufficient for doing any of these things?
I think we're currently in a moment of opportunity. That means some underlying limitations are in flux. That doesn't mean planners have unlimited powers though. Ideas that require everything to change the way a planner wants them to are wishy washy.
Living in a city doesn't prevent you from getting a train, riding a bike, or (even) hiring a car to get out into nature. The only thing in the way is getting out through the suburbs and sprawl.
And cities are usually the worst place to be during any sort of crisis (e.g. pandemic, riots, shortages/panic buying)
(Maybe it's the pricing that's all wrong. Maybe living in a city should be the cheaper option, and living in a more rural area should be an expensive luxury? But that's not what the market has given us)
Resource extraction, highways and wind turbines have to exist somewhere - so aren’t the more sparsely populated areas the obvious choice?
Or maybe letting future generations have an environment that they'd actually be able to explore and enjoy?
people seem to accept all sorts of indignities the world over and throughout history in order to continue living and also keeping their children alive.
Which city are you thinking of that you have such a negative feeling about them?
I just couldn't live somewhere so busy - trains/tube at peak times are a grim enough experience just doing it on occasional visits - couldn't deal with it every day, let alone during a pandemic. And then there's the insane cost of housing, and the noise.
The good news is cities don’t need to be like that.