[dashundchen]

There are livable and afforable alternative to Manhattan style density and there are plenty of working examples. We just refuse to build that way.

Look at many continental European cities.

A mid-sized German city will be full of low to mid density buildings and walk up apartments, few skyscrapers. Mixed use of retail and residential, and very good transit by American standards, connecting to intercity rail transit. Highways frequently terminating or routing outside the city. Plenty of greenspace.

Leipzig, Germany https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leipzig,+Germany/@51.33310...

Even the US used to have this, though they are long drowned in sprawl. Any city that was of decent size pre-WWII usually has street car suburbs - a dense mix of single family homes, shops and apartments usually built around a transit node that connected to the core and region. Look at Shaker/Cleveland Heights and Lakewood in Cleveland. There is a healthy mix of uses and density centered around transit. You can see the pattern they developed around, even if it's vestigial at this point.

[big_chungus]

That's not low-density. Maybe not everywhere is as bad as Manhattan, but that is indeed very dense. Note that you twice described your ideal solution as dense:

"a dense mix of single family homes, shops and apartments"

"a healthy mix of uses and density centered around transit."

Not a big fan of that kind of density, nor are many others. I'd at least like to have my own backyard, and not have my neighbors peering in from a second story.

[ars]

I think you have a very different definition of low density than everyone else.

Low density means there is at least a full building worth of space between houses and ideally several buildings worth.

It means you can stand on every side of your house and look and have difficulty seeing your neighbor.