I think you can have a bit of column A, a bit of column B. My home city is Mumbai (technically, the suburban city of Thane, north of Mumbai) one of the most de

I think you can have a bit of column A, a bit of column B. My home city is Mumbai (technically, the suburban city of Thane, north of Mumbai) one of the most dense large cities in the world. Public transportation in Mumbai, in terms of frequency, capacity, reliability, and cost is already better than any American city (I'm counting NYC in that). It could definitely be better; for instance the city is served by standard gauge trains but the metro railway (whatever gauge a subway is) that goes underground is still under construction. Despite all that, and despite the fact that the tallest building in the city is a mere 88 stories[1] the infrastructure is straining under the pressure every day. All the good jobs (government, tech, banking) are concentrated in just one or two parts of the city (South Mumbai and the Andheri-Bandra-Dadar triangle, maybe Powai; my geography might be a bit outdated because I haven't lived there for 8 years). And real estate in those places is astronomically expensive[2] (here's a non-luxury 3-bed apartment for USD 1.3m in South Mumbai). That means everyone whose isn't living with parents who bought decades ago in those places has 3-hour round trip commutes every day (I was one of those people). Building taller wouldn't densify the city because rich people will likely buy that new housing and they have smaller families on average. Improving public transportation won't change laws of distance and traffic - like I said it's already quite good. It would be better for people in North Mumbai if there were more jobs closer to them so they wouldn't have to commute so far every day. Suburban, car-driven, sprawl is not ideal for city growth, but neither is the concentration of jobs in one place. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Mumbai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_M... 2. https://www.99acres.com/3-bhk-bedroom-apartment-flat-for-sale-in-breach-candy-south-mumbai-2200-sq-ft-spid-E34355247?pos=SEARCH https://www.99acres.com/3-bhk-bedroom-apartment-flat-for-sal...