Everyone should watch the channel Not Just Bikes https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A, by a guy who moved to Holland and learned what makes those transformations possible, in my opinion.
The videos are short, informative, engaging, and thought-provoking. Hopefully action-provoking too, since my country, the USA, can use a lot of that change. People here act like it's impossible, but they thought so there too. It's possible and role models help.
Throw in the mostly empty county the town is in and Netherlands is ~35 times denser.
The same things aren't going to apply to such a different situation.
Of course cities in the US can do better, but lots of things just aren't going to be very practical in most of the country by area.
It seems like you're saying that "My town has to be built for cars because we live so far away from everything. Obviously the Netherlands can afford to build for people because they live so close together."
It could also be the case that people in your town live so far away from everything because it is built for cars, whereas since the Netherlands is built for people they can live close together.
It might be the case that density is not independent at all, and indeed is changed when you change the type of infrastructure.
(Not to mention that bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure is far, far cheaper than that for heavier vehicles.)
The point is: sub-urban US could be designed to be more dense to be on the other side of that switch over point.
See excuse #3, "our population is too spread out"
There's a not-yet-connected separated path growing between here and the smaller town ~10 miles away, but the local casino paid for a bunch of that!
Head west and the population really thins out.