[JumpCrisscross]

> One can live in rural area and limit driving to the absolute minimum necessary, and build a small house heated using renewables rather than a big house heated with fossil fuels

You’re still consuming massive resources in transporting materials to a low-density location. Unless you’re living completely off the land, de-densifying is far more impactful. (Consider how much land alone would be converted from nature to human use by spreading out the populations of New York and Los Angeles.)