You can have dense towns that feel spacious and verdant as well. Downtown Savannah, Charleston, many streetcar suburbs in older cities, many small college towns

You can have dense towns that feel spacious and verdant as well. Downtown Savannah, Charleston, many streetcar suburbs in older cities, many small college towns, ... USA has phenomenally good examples of dense but pleasant urban environments. NYC is an extreme. It's actually pretty awful in the ways you describe. Now image you keep the city but subtract all the cars for personal transportation. It'd feel so much more open, quiet, airy, accomodating.