You're not wrong exactly, but this mentality gets the causation backwards and induces a kind of helplessness -- "we can't have better transport until we have hi

You're not wrong exactly, but this mentality gets the causation backwards and induces a kind of helplessness -- "we can't have better transport until we have higher density". But you can build good transport infrastructure first to make the place attractive for densifying development. A while ago there were some photos that got shared around of a Chinese subway station built out in the middle of nowhere (Chongqing I think?). It was held up as some self-evident absurdity produced by a crazy top-down system. But a few years later the place was thriving with new buildings and businesses, precisely because of the station. It's not absurd. This how things used to be done and people have just forgotten it! In the American west, railroads came first, towns later. London grew the "Metroland" suburbs out of the northwest railway expansion in the 1920s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development Build it and they will come!