When people who don't like big cities are voting on transit and density initiative, it's because they live in or on the fringes of a big city. Most likely they are there because the money to be made is more important to them than their dislike of cities. Ergo, when business leaders say transit and density are needed for further economic growth, that message appeals to a strongly held value.

That's fine, you keep doing you. Just done stop other people from living the way they want to.

Not sure what "rural" has to do with this, because nearly all land in the US is rural and it's super easy to find any sort of rural life one wants, in addition to it being super cheap.

However, there is a massive undersupply of dense living in the US, because it has been legislated out of existence, not because people don't want it.

And I would point out that many "rural" towns have fantastic dense living in their core, that allow people to walk for daily errands, etc.

The real enemy of density is not rural vs. urban, because these do not tough each other at all. The people who prevent density are the suburban enclaves that, through heavy and excessive regulation, prevent people from building anything except for single family residential sprawl for miles upon miles, necessitating a car for something as simple as getting a pint of cream.

Which is the way that many people want to live, which is great for them, and they should be allowed to do that! But we need to stop letting them say to others: "I don't want to live in density, so you shouldn't have the very option of it because the mere existence threatens me."

I've been fighting for smart density in my town for quite a while, and no rural person would ever oppose this, because they are not in town! And I think they realize that the more people in town, the fewer crowding into their rural life.