> We need to change the wrong headed notion that dense urbanity is somehow bad for the environment.
Dense urbanity is bad for the local environment and, particularly, for human health in it. That's the cost of the lower per-capita impact on the global environment that it provides. We need to learn from what works (and what doesn't) in both dense and sparse environments to build lower-global-impact environments that remain high quality environments for human health and quality of life.
In the US, life expectancy is higher for people in urban areas than rural areas. Urban areas have less obesity, lower rates of suicide, lower rates of accidental death, higher quality of life for the elderly, and higher rates of healthy exercise.
It's true that some studies have shown higher rates of asthma and allergies in cities, but there are also contradictory studies saying that those things are just identified and treated more aggressively in cities -- because they tend to have much better access to healthcare services.
Dense urbanity is bad for the local environment and, particularly, for human health in it. That's the cost of the lower per-capita impact on the global environment that it provides. We need to learn from what works (and what doesn't) in both dense and sparse environments to build lower-global-impact environments that remain high quality environments for human health and quality of life.