Living in a remote area is much worse for the environment because of all the energy need to deliver goods out there for a tiny amount of people
If you shared the farm and solar panels with a few friends you trust, is this close enough? Because you can have that in a city (search for Enercoop in France for the energy, and AMAP for _Association Pour une Agriculture Paysanne_).
Local, clean, self sufficient, etc. but with a minimum of solidarity. Also, you have a much smaller footprint by living in a city so it's a scalable model (i.e not one man for himself and après moi le déluge).
It might be possible to create a less densely populated city-like structure which works like this, the question is whether it is worth the effort. For those who see this as a fulfilment of some ideological drive it might, just like living off-grid in the middle of nowhere does for others. For the general population this is unlikely to be true though.
We won't be lacking space if we eat less meat (like our ancestor). We've only started eating so (too!) much meat quite recently and that's what taking all the space. Switching to mostly plant-based diet would resolve most issues.
>It might be possible to create a less densely populated city-like structure which works like this, the question is whether it is worth the effort.
No need to reduce density. Even big cities (like Paris) can procure most of its food from local farms. We just need to focus on local types of food (less exotic but not necessarily less diverse: for instance I get far more diverse vegetable from my farm than most Parisians).
Going vertical is unneeded and would require far more efforts than making farming more reasonable.
Living in a remote environment limits your income. (Or used to, anyway. I guess we'll see in five or ten years.) Nearly everyone's spending closely follows their income.
The pendulum might swing back in five or ten years -- companies might start requiring their staff to be on site. I'm suspending judgement for a while.
Living rural can work if you reduce your consumption and travel. If you're getting your water from a well in your land with electricity from natural renewables, and you also grow your own vegetables and raise your own chicken, you're self-sufficient.