Charitably, this is a goofy take. Less charitably, your reference to a "vocal urbanist activist crowd" suggests that you're leaning more on partisan talking points than evidence.

More to the point, here's where this argument breaks down:

> If a city is not overbuilt and overpopulated to the point where the road infrastructure is overwhelmed

Given current demographic trends within the United States, major cities are guaranteed to see population growth beyond what current American public infrastructure can sustain.

Compounding this problem is the fact that there's significant overlap between the segment of the population which thinks that driving is a sacred right and folks who think that spending public money on efficient public transit is unacceptable.

I enjoy driving. It doesn't work for major cities. And those same cities are inevitably going to get denser if trends continue. Everyone driving his or her own car to their job (or to "the things they want to do") in the name of personal convenience is not the answer.