Small towns and semi-rural areas squander their land with the exact same ass-ugly car-centric public realms you'll find in the suburbs of major metro areas. The

Small towns and semi-rural areas squander their land with the exact same ass-ugly car-centric public realms you'll find in the suburbs of major metro areas. They just get less attention for it since the land in question is abundant. There are examples of small towns with good urbanism - a lot of college towns fit this bill - but they are so rare that they just replicate big-city level prices, without the high-productivity jobs to pay them.