The California of the north.
People gravitate toward cities because edu/$/oppy, but can't afford to live there comfortably until they're established in a career that would allow it ... and not all careers are on that kind of pay scale, so service workers get pushed into suburbs, then exurbs, then satellite cities. We haven't gotten beyond that stage yet, but suffice to say everyone is recognizing that it's unsustainable to allow cities to be comfortable only for the wealthy.
This is conflating a real problem with an artificial problem.
Sprawling Anglo-phone cities (NA, Australia, NZ, etc) have very different problems from truly dense cities in places like China, Brazil or even NYC, the one exception.
Sao Paolo and Shanghai have people packed like sardines. On the other hand, all 3 of SF, Vancouver and LA collapse into sprawl the second you leave the city core. This sounds like a guy who worries about suddenly becoming too jacked on their first day at the gym.