these people expect current and future generations to be worse off than their parents.

That’s just…not true. Like yeah, there are some things that you might perceive as disadvantages at first. But in net it’s such a huge improvement, and most of the “disadvantages” actually become advantages when thought about more deeply.

No pool? Thank fuck. Those things are dangerous, expensive, and a lot of work. Instead, urbanists want more access to all sorts of public services, including more public pools with their trained lifeguards and professional maintenance.

No solar panels? Eh, that one’s just straight up not true. My preferred form of development is as many row houses as possible, and in that everyone has their own roof that they can put solar on if they want. But there will of course be some apartment buildings too. Ideally, those should have solar as well, it just requires a situation where housing is not as much treated as an investment vehicle and is instead thought of as people’s homes, so bodies corporate are working to the benefit of residents. It might also require some clever engineering and social/legal structures to get it to be equitable.

Gardens are somewhere between these two. You can have public and community gardens which add a greater sense of community as an added bonus, gardens in greenspace that forms common property which does much the same but only with your closest neighbours, or row house developments can easily have small yards at the front with room for planting.

But even if we were to concede all of the above, you’re ignoring all the other disadvantages of low density development. They inherently are more expensive. Land is way more expensive because you literally need to pay for more of it. Rates are more expensive because you end up paying for more metres of infrastructure—roads, electricity lines, sewerage, etc.—per household. You pay more for transport because cars become almost a necessity to live, and that’s a huge expense. Or your pay more (either directly or through taxes) for public transport because that’s less efficient in low density—if the government runs it at all to such low density locales.

And then you get into all the other matters related to car dependency. How low density housing is terrible for children because they become so dependent on parents to give them lifts anywhere, rather than being able to walk or ride to their friends’ place or to soccer practice. How it’s just literally more dangerous for kids because cars are one of the biggest killers. How cars themselves and the road infrastructure to support them are bad for the environment, both in a global atmosphere impact thing and in terms of local heat island effects. And how they’re so terrible for wildlife. How driving is by far the most stressful mode of transport, how it causes people to dehumanise others, how it hurts local small businesses and props up big box national chains—which is especially relevant at a time when so many media stories are coming out about how terrible Coleworths have been for both suppliers’ and consumers’ wallets.

Never mind the simple fact that increasing density is necessary to resolve the housing crisis, medium density neighbourhoods are better for your wallet, better for communities, better for the environment, better for your children, and better for the economy. They’re just straight-up better. And it’s wrong to pretend that urbanists are asking you to settle for worse.