[arcticbull]

Obviously not the 14M people who live in Tokyo. Those buildings aren't empty! Population of Santa Monica is 91,000, which is what the population of Tokyo would be if nobody wanted to live there :)

If the density becomes problematic, buy the land, or mosey on.

This to me is the least compelling counter-argument. "Nobody wants to live in a big dense city" is like saying "nobody drives in New York, there's too much traffic!" You personally don't, but obviously, we can tell by inspection that's simply not a true statement in general.

Which brings us back to "but I got here first!" which is to me, the second-least compelling argument.