Humans suck (at least via intuition) when it comes to exponential processes. E.g. - people think a 2% growth rate of population in a town is good, but that means in 35 years it's double of what it was!
And likely decreasing now again, as people find less cultural benefit of living in an expensive city during an ongoing pandemic.
I don't think population size or density is really the problem - the problem is poor planning to account for probable changes in population size or density. Consistent 2% growth should be relatively easy for politicians to anticipate and manage.