You see the same dynamics in London and Paris.
People do not "prefer to live in dense urban environments" by urbanist standards.
They prefer to live in dense urban environments by North American standards, which can still be far less dense than urbanists really want.
And this was my comparison?
Nobody wants to live there, it's too crowded and there's too much demand for housing! Oh wait, that makes no sense.
You are required to live there, its not a choice.
Almost every town in the US, at one point, was dense enough to support a vibrant main street. Many (most?) of them even had tram lines and other forms of public transportation.
It's not an either or proposition. You can have cost-effective infrastructure through relative density without having to deal with all of the trappings - good and bad - that come from a city.