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It varies by country, for instance Spain seems more comfortable with density than say England. But leaving personal preferences and anecdotes aside, if we look

It varies by country, for instance Spain seems more comfortable with density than say England. But leaving personal preferences and anecdotes aside, if we look at the data, Europe definitely prefers density compared to the US: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/World_population_density_1994_-_with_equator.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/World_po...

luckylion 6y ago
I wonder if it's a preference or just that there are fewer options. By US standards, all European countries are high density, e.g. Germany with ~25% of the US population is significantly smaller than California, maybe 5% of the size of the US.
- adventured 6y ago
  They're far older concentration processes, which is a factor ignored by other comments about why. The US is still filling in, settling, its vast territory. European territory is mostly settled, the cities are established, their process of forming major new cities is mostly over. In 1940 the Las Vegas metro area had only a couple tens of thousands of people. Now it has 2.25 million - a metro larger than Slovenia, Latvia or Estonia. In 1940 the Austin Texas metro maybe had 100k people, now it's 2.1m. Texas of course has many examples of rapid population expansion metros, as new, large urban or semi-urban areas get created. Utah didn't exist as a state until 1896 and its population has increased over ten fold since then; its population has increased 300 fold in 150 years. In the late 19th century, Phoenix had only several thousand people, now the metro is approaching five million (equivalent to adding an Ireland, Norway, Finland or Denmark). Paris by amusing contrast is of course over two millennia old. European populations have been concentrating into their cities, and emptying their surrounding lands, for far longer than the US has existed.

luckylion 6y ago

I wonder if it's a preference or just that there are fewer options. By US standards, all European countries are high density, e.g. Germany with ~25% of the US population is significantly smaller than California, maybe 5% of the size of the US.

adventured 6y ago
They're far older concentration processes, which is a factor ignored by other comments about why. The US is still filling in, settling, its vast territory. European territory is mostly settled, the cities are established, their process of forming major new cities is mostly over. In 1940 the Las Vegas metro area had only a couple tens of thousands of people. Now it has 2.25 million - a metro larger than Slovenia, Latvia or Estonia. In 1940 the Austin Texas metro maybe had 100k people, now it's 2.1m. Texas of course has many examples of rapid population expansion metros, as new, large urban or semi-urban areas get created. Utah didn't exist as a state until 1896 and its population has increased over ten fold since then; its population has increased 300 fold in 150 years. In the late 19th century, Phoenix had only several thousand people, now the metro is approaching five million (equivalent to adding an Ireland, Norway, Finland or Denmark). Paris by amusing contrast is of course over two millennia old. European populations have been concentrating into their cities, and emptying their surrounding lands, for far longer than the US has existed.