The US has a lot of land and not everyone likes to be squeezed into a dense city.
Correct, but unfortunately this attitude has been used to justify preventing anyone _else_ from living in a city because Joe and Jane homeowner like living in a quiet country village right next to a major metropolis. See also: the massive hypocrisy in that is every city on the peninsula except SF. How can they claim to support affordable housing without supporting building housing, ideally near transit so people aren't burdened with the expense of a car?
With regards to cities, blame the NIMBYs and their political allies who uses all sorts of "livability studies, heritage laws, and more, to prevent affordable housing from being built. This is simply code for "we don't want THOSE people living here". The vast majority of housing laws are simply modern day redlining tarted up with feel good phrases and misdirection.
I haven't read it yet, but this book might be insightful: http://amzn.to/2dQutwR ( Zoned in the USA: The Origins and Implications of American Land-Use Regulation )
Other recommendations would be welcome. I'm tremendously interested in this issue.
Edit: I'll add this book, too: "Zoning Rules!: The Economics of Land Use Regulation" - http://amzn.to/2dHphdJ - haven't read it yet but it looks quite informative.
I don't think that's the whole story though.
Zoning regulations happened en masse at the tail end of the Great Migration, to control and confine black migration to northern cities.
My grandfather lived in a small town in Oklahoma that was literally three blocks long. It had a traditional pre-war Main Street of attached commercial buildings with on-street parking, surrounded by detached single-family housing. But when you go there now, the whole town is surrounded by exurban sprawl: all newly constructed businesses are surrounded by a lawn enclosing an oversized on-site parking lot and the business in a detached building. It is nearly impossible to go in and do your shopping by walking from business to business: you have to drive to do every kind of errand.
And this is true of small towns all over: any rural small town with recent construction now has its own exurban zone. It's ridiculous: the closest thing to a prewar Main Street is a strip mall with an onsite parking lot.
But sure. Persuade whatever West Coast city to aggressively build for density. For better or worse, we don't do these things as top-down directives in the US.