"New york as a result has a lower population density than Paris, Athens, Barcelona or the like." This is a little misleading. NYC also includes large regions

"New york as a result has a lower population density than Paris, Athens, Barcelona or the like." This is a little misleading. NYC also includes large regions of SFHs, including Staten Island (density 8K/mi^2) and Queens (22K/mi^2). If you include only Manhattan, its density (73K/mi^2) exceeds all of Paris (52K/mi^2), Athens (44K), and Barcelona (41K). The lesson is more that uniform 4-story buildings across a large area are more dense than an urban core of skyscrapers surrounded by suburbs of SFHs, but we knew that already. An urban core of skyscrapers surrounded by suburbs of 4-story apartment buildings would be even more dense (see Brooklyn, density 38K/mi^2, comparable to many of those European cities).