while also not being in some dense urban hellscape 🇳🇱🇪🇺

Fun fact: Although Amsterdam (~5,000/km^2^) fails to match the population density of New York City (~11,000/km^2^), similarly-human-scale Paris manages to almost double it (~20,000/km^2^) despite not having skyscrapers. Because of things like progressive setbacks and the need to build parking decks to comply with minimum parking requirements, NYC-style skyscrapers really don't buy you as much extra living space as you might think, compared to mid-rise apartment buildings that can use the entire city block curb-to-curb.

That's already how my life is in the USA. I live in the woods, and I can get to 2 grocery stores within 5-10 minutes.

The most frustrating thing is being in a place with dense outwardly building urban development. Watching more and more copy/pasted strip malls go up with plans for "Subway. Smoke shop. Nails. Maybe gas station." (Yes, every time)

Aside from copy-paste labyrinthine housing developments.

You just wish you could shout loudly enough "You're doing it all wrong and there's still a chance to make this better!"

But it keeps on going.