FranLab is getting evicted

[tom66]

They're trying to do something about that in my state. Our awful governor that has been in office for a decade has been pushing a bill that would allow construction of 4-plexes in all residential neighborhoods in cities with over 6000 residents which would include my neighborhood. [..]

I wish we had politicians as brave as that here!  We need more homes (and in places people actually want to live, not just in more urban sprawl.)

[tautech]

They're trying to do something about that in my state. Our awful governor that has been in office for a decade has been pushing a bill that would allow construction of 4-plexes in all residential neighborhoods in cities with over 6000 residents which would include my neighborhood. [..]

I wish we had politicians as brave as that here!  We need more homes (and in places people actually want to live, not just in more urban sprawl.)

Hell no, just no !
The urban sprawl don’t matter one shit if it’s not consuming productive land but above all there must be planned provision for local employment by way of industrial and commercial zoning.

[tom66]

Hell no, just no !
The urban sprawl don’t matter one shit if it’s not consuming productive land but above all there must be planned provision for local employment by way of industrial and commercial zoning.

Yeah, it does though.

We cannot continue building suburbs that are entirely car dependent.   They are huge cost sinks (roads cost a lot to maintain but lots of single family homes don't generate much revenue), bad for health (because there's little to no opportunity to walk or cycle to just about anywhere) and cause more pollution. 

It's okay to have detached homes (after all, families need space) but they should be mixed in a neighbourhood with terraced homes, apartments (not tall ones, but 3-4 stories) and businesses.  Not just single family home, one after another in indefinite sprawl.

It's OK to use a car, often times necessary, but in the urban sprawl that typifies American (and many Australian) cities is counterproductive.   We can do better.

[Kasper]

They're trying to do something about that in my state. Our awful governor that has been in office for a decade has been pushing a bill that would allow construction of 4-plexes in all residential neighborhoods in cities with over 6000 residents which would include my neighborhood. [..]

I wish we had politicians as brave as that here!  We need more homes (and in places people actually want to live, not just in more urban sprawl.)

That doesn't take bravery, it takes a lack of: morals, common sense and respect for democracy.

It takes a dictator to force zoning changes after people have bought into it.  It forces change on people who are the most commited and have contributed the most to an area just to make space for other people who don't want to change themselves.

Fran for example, could make slight changes to her career or location and solve her own problem.  That would also help people in similar situations by reducing demand and putting downward pressure on prices.

Some people don't want to change themselves or help others, they just want the government to give them stuff and they somehow don't seem to care that it means stealing from others.

[Kasper]

We cannot continue building suburbs that are entirely car dependent. [...]bad for health (because there's little to no opportunity to walk or cycle to just about anywhere) and cause more pollution. 

Walking and biking around a dense neighborhood is the least fun and least healthy way to get exercise.

Imagine a family with a house where they work from home, grow food in their yard and grocery shop once a week.  They exercise in their home gym, doing yard work, shovelling snow and in nearby nature.

Compare that to people who live in crowded and noisey apartment.  They can't stand to be in it for even 1 day without escaping to an office, a coffee shop and a gym.  They create a need for multiple locations running HVAC and lighting.  They breath pollution everywhere they go.  They eat extra food to replace the calories they burn constantly walking in circles.  They go to the grocery store almost daily because they have little space for food storage.  Food they buy gets trucked in from far away. Twice a week they drive 2 hours to go to the beach, ski hill, hiking, etc.

Obviously this is a skewed view but just to show, living in dense neighborhoods isn't always better for your health, or our planets health.

[james_s]

I wish we had politicians as brave as that here!  We need more homes (and in places people actually want to live, not just in more urban sprawl.)

You actually want tyrants that override the wishes of the citizens?  We don't need more homes, we need fewer people. You absolutely cannot build your way to affordable housing when you have a limited amount of space and an effectively unlimited demand. Building more housing draws more people, and ruining the suburbs by turning them into developments of multifamily complexes drives sprawl by forcing people like me to move further out. I had planned to stay here but already I'm planning to move out to a more rural area when I retire.

[james_s]

We cannot continue building suburbs that are entirely car dependent.   They are huge cost sinks (roads cost a lot to maintain but lots of single family homes don't generate much revenue), bad for health (because there's little to no opportunity to walk or cycle to just about anywhere) and cause more pollution. 

It's okay to have detached homes (after all, families need space) but they should be mixed in a neighbourhood with terraced homes, apartments (not tall ones, but 3-4 stories) and businesses.  Not just single family home, one after another in indefinite sprawl.

It's OK to use a car, often times necessary, but in the urban sprawl that typifies American (and many Australian) cities is counterproductive.   We can do better.

Well those areas you are saying we can't have are the only areas I'm willing to live in, and this is an issue I'm willing to go to any lengths to fight for. It amounts to driving me out of my home, and it is a very serious issue. I would support violence if necessary to overthrow anyone that tries to force this on me.

[james_s]

Obviously this is a skewed view but just to show, living in dense neighborhoods isn't always better for your health, or our planets health.

Dense neighborhoods are not good for my mental health, they are absolutely intolerable, it is making me feel stressed just thinking about it. I'm like a cat, I need space, it is not a want, it is a need as important as food and oxygen. Cooped up in a dense urban apartment would literally drive me insane.

[Kasper]

Cooped up in a dense urban apartment would literally drive me insane.

You and me both.  Years ago I lived in a 1100 sq ft apartment.   Hearing my neighbors and dealing with strata drove me mad.  Even a 300 sq ft carriage house was a vast improvement compared to that.

[tautech]

Obviously this is a skewed view but just to show, living in dense neighborhoods isn't always better for your health, or our planets health.

Dense neighborhoods are not good for my mental health, they are absolutely intolerable, it is making me feel stressed just thinking about it. I'm like a cat, I need space, it is not a want, it is a need as important as food and oxygen. Cooped up in a dense urban apartment would literally drive me insane.

1000% with James here as recently in Auckland NZ our green leaning gubbermint decreed that all suburbs were to allow infill development allowing up to 3 stories and 3 titles to be created from each of our traditional 1/4 acre sections effectively raising 2 fingers to decades or urban suburb zoning and the residents that have purchased there for whatever reason !
Just who do they think they are, gubbermint or not decreeing that population density was not to their liking and riding roughshod over residents and councils decades of carefully structured zoning.

The absolutely dumb higher proportion of these affected residents just swallowed this garbage with only the vision of the substantial capital gain they were to make while the more invested residents have to sit back and watch their community get devastated in such a way they no longer want to live there.

This would be bad enough if a newly elected local council was to ride roughshod over residents wishes but for a gubbermint it's appalling behaviour as they have no business at all steering how communities develop.

[tom66]

Well those areas you are saying we can't have are the only areas I'm willing to live in, and this is an issue I'm willing to go to any lengths to fight for. It amounts to driving me out of my home, and it is a very serious issue. I would support violence if necessary to overthrow anyone that tries to force this on me.

Nobody is going to get violent over this.  You'll just see your local area get worse and worse and essential services will get cut as the growth of a city fails to bring in enough tax to maintain it.  So more potholes, less frequent bin collections, water leaks and sewerage problems, bridges in need of critical repair, unweeded paths and roads etc. 

Suburbia, at least in the US, is basically a gigantic Ponzi scheme and cities are going bankrupt over it.   They are only sustainable as long as the city continues to grow, as the new developers fund the existing maintenance.  The problem is you can't even tax your way out of it.  If suburbanites had to pay the actual cost per mi^2 of the infrastructure they depend upon, they'd be looking at something close to a $30k/year annual tax bill.  That's the problem, you just can't have taxation that high.  Enjoy the life while you can, but if you continue voting for politicians that insist on NIMBYist policy that prohibits density at all costs, then you will eventually see the consequences of that upon your local area (and, too, upon the value of your property.)

[james_s]

Nobody is going to get violent over this.  You'll just see your local area get worse and worse and essential services will get cut as the growth of a city fails to bring in enough tax to maintain it.  So more potholes, less frequent bin collections, water leaks and sewerage problems, bridges in need of critical repair, unweeded paths and roads etc. 

Suburbia, at least in the US, is basically a gigantic Ponzi scheme and cities are going bankrupt over it.   They are only sustainable as long as the city continues to grow, as the new developers fund the existing maintenance.  The problem is you can't even tax your way out of it.  If suburbanites had to pay the actual cost per mi^2 of the infrastructure they depend upon, they'd be looking at something close to a $30k/year annual tax bill.  That's the problem, you just can't have taxation that high.  Enjoy the life while you can, but if you continue voting for politicians that insist on NIMBYist policy that prohibits density at all costs, then you will eventually see the consequences of that upon your local area (and, too, upon the value of your property.)

Don't count on it. We have a constitutionally protected right to bare arms for the specific purpose of the population overthrowing a tyrannical government that has overstepped its bounds and forgotten that they work for the people, not the other way around. We don't tolerate dictators here.

Suburbia in the USA works just fine, you don't live here so I'm not sure what makes you think you know anything about it. The cities are utterly dependent on the rural areas for food and resources, dense urban cities cannot support themselves and would implode in isolation. I'm glad that they exist so that there is a place for people who like to live in an ant farm, but seriously f*#& anyone who tries to force everyone to live in that type of environment. I'm not joking, I cannot exist in a dense city. DO NOT try to turn MY environment into something YOU find ideal and I will not try to turn your environment into something suitable for me. You seem to have a very idealistic idea in your head about how the world should work and you don't care what others want and wish you had the power to force everyone to live your way, that is not acceptable. That is tyranny, that is what dictators do.

[tautech]

We have a constitutionally protected right to bare arms for the specific purpose of the population overthrowing a tyrannical government that has overstepped its bounds and forgotten that they work for the people, not the other way around. We don't tolerate dictators here.

Yet if the UN was to have its way with their disarmament policies as they are most everywhere else in the world you wouldn't have that push back and the whole world would be rosey according to the UN. 
Watch these muppets ^ ^ ^

It's sad our current 'leaders' haven't retained their 'ground up' vision and are now too easily led by the $ than putting in place conditions where anyone if they put in the effort can gain peace and prosperity.

Utopia unachievable some might say but utopia it would be if only gubbermints and councils/local governance would have a much lesser part of our everyday lives instead of hellbent ivory tower development. 

[Kasper]

Suburbia, at least in the US, is basically a gigantic Ponzi scheme and cities are going bankrupt over it.   They are only sustainable as long as the city continues to grow, as the new developers fund the existing maintenance.  [...] NIMBYist policy that prohibits density at all costs

Increasing density MIGHT slow your ponzi scheme but that's not the only option.  It'd be better to end the ponzi scheme.  We have rapidly improving technology, our city planners should be able to live within their means in nearly any density of city.  I think that is an easier task in cities with lower density.

[tautech]

Suburbia, at least in the US, is basically a gigantic Ponzi scheme and cities are going bankrupt over it.   They are only sustainable as long as the city continues to grow, as the new developers fund the existing maintenance.  [...] NIMBYist policy that prohibits density at all costs

Increasing density MIGHT slow your ponzi scheme but that's not the only option.  It'd be better to end the ponzi scheme.  We have rapidly improving technology, our city planners should be able to live within their means in nearly any density of city.  I think that is an easier task in cities with lower density.

Which in reality couldn't plan a pissup in a brewery !
Here in recently developed suburbs should the ground conditions be substandard to withstand the newly 'prescribed' 3 story creations tradies struggle to get their gear onto site as the density is so heightened they forgot about needing to build roads wide enough to get any big rig or a truck and trailer along these things that can only be described as goat tracks !
But it gets worse as the development continues as every site requires further visits from large machinery any and all at risk of taking out tires while entering these modern hovels of creation and when finished should just a parked car take up some of the road getting even a firetruck down these tracks becomes impossible.
Don't park on the road I hear you say, well with just one pissy carpark/residence and zero local employment what else are residents to do ?
Planners, they couldn't even plan a poo yet they leave a mountain of shit wherever they go.

[Kasper]

NIMBYist policy that prohibits density at all costs

You seem to have a very idealistic idea in your head about how the world should work and you don't care what others want and wish you had the power to force everyone to live your way, that is not acceptable. That is tyranny, that is what dictators do.

tom66, since you use the term nimby, would you consider yourself a magtyby: me and government taking your back yard?

This is a very idealistic view that people can somehow find ways for dense cities to be good but can't figure out how to make simple, lower density areas be good.

Talks about a dense city as a place where people walk to the grocery store despite the reality that many of them commute through multiple cities to go to their favorite bulk food distributor which trucks their food in from far away.  But somehow doesn't acknowledge people can walk to the grocery store through quiet, tree lined streets of single family houses just as easily as they can through congested blocks of apartments.

[Kasper]

our city planners

couldn't plan a pissup in a brewery !

If you consider their motives to be that of most business people: to grow their salary and cv by growing the business, then their planning skills don't seem quite as absurdly awful. 

If they are also home owners then they have extra incentive to grow the city and make it spend lots of money: to increase their property value, even if it means plunging their city into debt.

I'm guessing this isn't the driving factor in all city planners decisions but I wouldn't be surprised if it influenced many of them.

[nctnico]

NIMBYist policy that prohibits density at all costs

You seem to have a very idealistic idea in your head about how the world should work and you don't care what others want and wish you had the power to force everyone to live your way, that is not acceptable. That is tyranny, that is what dictators do.

tom66, since you use the term nimby, would you consider yourself a magtyby: me and government taking your back yard?

This is a very idealistic view that people can somehow find ways for dense cities to be good but can't figure out how to make simple, lower density areas be good.

Talks about a dense city as a place where people walk to the grocery store despite the reality that many of them commute through multiple cities to go to their favorite bulk food distributor which trucks their food in from far away.  But somehow doesn't acknowledge people can walk to the grocery store through quiet, tree lined streets of single family houses just as easily as they can through congested blocks of apartments.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Recently I visited LA. In the city centre with a lot of high rise apartment buildings you can walk to your favorite grocery shop one or 2 blocks away because there are enough people living in such a small area to make having such a shop worth while. OTOH I also looked around in Santa Ana / Irvine and over there the distances are much larger. Going shoping on foot is undoable even for me as a great fan of simply walking to places. Yes, the tree lined streets are there but I'd need at least a bicycle to move around in order to not waste lots of time just travelling. Grocery stores are spread much thinner in that area because there are less people living there per unit of land area.

IMHO these are both extremes.

Where I live there is a middle ground with cascaded houses along tree lined streets but distances to get to from one part of the city to the other, are still small and doable on foot. The city where I live has been developed during the past decades and has seperate road systems for cars, cyclists / walkways and public transport. Urban planners should follow that as a blue print. I've seen several places in LA's suburbs (like Santa Ana) where they added cycling / scooter lanes but these are essentially useless because cyclists are still sharing the road with cars and thus needing to stop at every intersection. Modern, ecologically friendly city development requires a totally different mindset.

It still doesn't mean existing cities can't be retrofitted to allow for better light transport. But this has to be done using elevated roads and /or tunnels for 'slow transport' cycling / scooter lanes that allow quick transits without needing cross paths with cars. In the end cars are pretty slow in an urban environment.

[tautech]

our city planners

couldn't plan a pissup in a brewery !

If you consider their motives to be that of most business people: to grow their salary and cv by growing the business, then their planning skills don't seem quite as absurdly awful. 

If they are also home owners then they have extra incentive to grow the city and make it spend lots of money: to increase their property value, even if it means plunging their city into debt.

I'm guessing this isn't the driving factor in all city planners decisions but I wouldn't be surprised if it influenced many of them.

You would expect servants of the city (planners serving the the ratepayers) to be guided by overarching policy so to get new blank canvas suburb creations right first time, wouldn't you ?
Hell it's not like we've been doing this for just the last year or 3.

In all my life I've never had high opinions of any but one, a chap whom recognised the wisdom of my pop and worked closely with him over many years to now be a commissioner deciding on planning applications and appeals but sadly hamstrung by many policy rules.
The whole system still needs substantial refining and after how many decades. 

[PlainName]

We have a constitutionally protected right to bare arms for the specific purpose of the population overthrowing a tyrannical government that has overstepped its bounds and forgotten that they work for the people, not the other way around

Really? Even the right to bear arms for that specific purpose?

Of course, I haven't grown up with the second amendment, but my reading of it (and the subsequent lawsuits, with the supreme court ruling in 2017) is that you have the right to "keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home". The other interpretation is for state and/or federal defense in a militia.

Whatever, I don't think shooting up your local government offices because they've re-zoned somewhere is a lawful purpose, and in any case seems rather over the top.

[tom66]

Don't count on it. We have a constitutionally protected right to bare arms for the specific purpose of the population overthrowing a tyrannical government that has overstepped its bounds and forgotten that they work for the people, not the other way around. We don't tolerate dictators here.

Aren't you getting annoyed at politicians that are elected by citizens around you doing things that (presumably) the citizens ultimately approve of, or at least don't hate enough to vote against it?  That's also a pillar of the US, and indeed any democracy.  Though the US does have some wonky democratic standards, like gerrymandering, these tend to favour the more conservative candidate as they benefit the rural areas more.  So I'm failing to see the problem here, other than it's happening a bit too slowly, as people aren't aware of the issues.

Suburbia in the USA works just fine, you don't live here so I'm not sure what makes you think you know anything about it.

Low density suburbia has similar problems in every country - this is definitely not unique to the USA - though it is true the US has some particularly challenging issues around it.  The biggest, though certainly not the only issue is, that it takes in far too little tax for the infrastructure it requires to support itself.  And people don't like paying tax, and have voted for successive governments that promise to reduce tax.   This is applicable in Europe, in the UK, in America, Australia, everywhere.  Please go and read "Strong Towns" which talks about all of the problems of suburbia, you don't need to take my word for it. There is plenty of research in this area - the diagrams showing the cost of suburbia relative to the tax revenue taken in are particularly enlightening. Those dense city areas you hate? Well, they're paying to pave the roads you drive on in suburbia.  Without them, the roads would be even worse.

The cities are utterly dependent on the rural areas for food and resources, dense urban cities cannot support themselves and would implode in isolation.

Suburban sprawl != rural productive farmland

Like, you can go and live in a farmhouse if you want, or even a rural town.  Those are actually quite good places to live and more should be built, as they tend to be generally self-sustaining, especially so if they become attractive as tourist spots.  Relatively low infrastructure requirements, because the population is quite small.  The problem is, as I've said, suburban sprawl: it's a very specific definition of just lots of single family, large area detached homes, one after another, serviced nearly exclusively by road, usually located on the outer rim of a city, but sometimes sprawling a mile or two away from the city, because a parcel of land got bought up and developed for cheap.

I am not talking about low density housing in itself.  A farmhouse on 10 acres of productive land is of course extremely low density, far lower than even suburban sprawl, but that's not a problem.  The problem is sprawling housing developments that cannot economically support themselves; these areas have high infrastructure cost but very few people per mi^2, and people are tax revenue.  Think about what a suburban area requires:  it needs shopping facilities, it needs medical facilities, it needs gyms, churches and other amenities.  These demands are so much harder to service when you need huge roads to move everyone around, when there is no choice but to drive to get anywhere, so every shopping mall needs a ~10 acre parking lot. And then traffic gets worse, because population and demand grows, so they need wider roads, bigger intersections, bigger parking lots, etc.  We end up with stroads, which are not only discouraging to pedestrians, but outright dangerous to anyone who's not in an SUV. And they create so much pollution, divide neighbourhoods in two, and enforce car dependency.  Having such large tarmaced areas creates flood risks, because it's prohibitive to natural drainage (porous concrete is a partial solution, but not perfect), and the runoff from these parking lots is toxic to aquatic life and the like.

Similar, somewhat related problem: golf courses.  So much productive land area used (often in areas where housing is in high demand), with extremely high irrigation in most areas, but used by, what, 25 people at any one time? At least golf courses are usually privately owned, so it's more of an "economic shame" than a direct cost on the city.

I'm glad that they exist so that there is a place for people who like to live in an ant farm, but seriously f*#& anyone who tries to force everyone to live in that type of environment. I'm not joking, I cannot exist in a dense city. DO NOT try to turn MY environment into something YOU find ideal and I will not try to turn your environment into something suitable for me. You seem to have a very idealistic idea in your head about how the world should work and you don't care what others want and wish you had the power to force everyone to live your way, that is not acceptable. That is tyranny, that is what dictators do.

Not once have I proposed forcing anyone to move out of their home, you are placing that idea in your head in order to create a straw man to fight against.  I am saying we should STOP building these sprawling estates, and where possible we should be building denser, more integrated housing.  What we do with existing sprawl is more difficult, but it is very likely to depend on the needs of an area.  Some sprawl is more sustainable than other sprawl, especially if it's surrounded by more productive land.  Housing has a lifespan, especially timber constructed homes in the US, so as these homes reach the end of their life, they could be replaced with something better.  Or, we could improve the infrastructure or allow subdivision of existing units, or the city could purchase the most unproductive areas and convert them.  The latter has already happened with some high flood risk areas; the city determines the cost of flood barriers or the like is so high that it's simply cheaper to make these homes just go away.

[sokoloff]

I’ve read the Strong Towns propaganda and it’s well-produced and makes some good points while strongly advocating for a position the authors prefer.

I think it also misses the mark on several key elements, particularly the plainly visible observation that plenty of our cities are struggling financially while the (separately incorporated, budgeted, and funded) surrounding suburban towns and counties are doing just fine financially, even with the increased square meters of roadway per person to maintain, plow, and periodically resurface. Many of these around me aren’t newly incorporated areas, such that the tapering of growth just hasn’t caught up with them yet (unless that effect takes 300 or more years, in which case, I’m probably okay with anyway).

These suburbs often have the most desirable places to live, to raise a family, to send your kids to the public schools, and tend to operate with balanced budgets, contrary to the forecasted doom and gloom from the Strong Towns material.

[Kasper]

Our awful governor that has been in office for a decade has been pushing a bill that would allow construction of 4-plexes in all residential neighborhoods in cities with over 6000 residents which would include my neighborhood. [..]

I wish we had politicians as brave as that here!  We need more homes (and in places people actually want to live, not just in more urban sprawl.)
[...]
Like, you can go and live in a farmhouse if you want, or even a rural town.  Those are actually quite good places to live and more should be built

James said 'cities with over 6000 residents'.

In my province, it is every city.  Including tiny ones.

So no, we can't settle in a low density area and not have to move if people keep supporting these dictators and calling them brave.

If you are going to support the dictators taking that away from people, you ought be clear where exactly you want them to make these big permanent changes.  You should also have a very good reason and clear evidence that it'll solve some awful problems and not ruin what you call 'quite good places'.

Cities put a lot of time, money and precedence into zoning decisions and locally elected leaders have final say.  When higher levels of governments throw out that work and override them, they are dictating outside of their jurisdiction.  They are elected by the province, they jurisdiction is provincial issues.  The citizens of the province do not have the right to override local citizens on local zoning.  Why should big city dwellers have the right to cause permanent damage to small city zoning or any type of local zoning for that matter? 

I can see why big city dwellers want some say: so they can take space for themselves in nice small cities from the people who built them.  I would not call that 'brave'.

[tom66]

tom66, since you use the term nimby, would you consider yourself a magtyby: me and government taking your back yard?

Not in favour, and have never stated the government should repossess private property.

I'd have no problem however with some of the unused and underutilised parcels of land around me being converted into denser housing, though.    I'm very much of the opinion that we need to build more housing, not try to close planning laws even further, and what housing we do build needs to be built with the community and transport links in mind. 

This is a very idealistic view that people can somehow find ways for dense cities to be good but can't figure out how to make simple, lower density areas be good.

I'm not one to want to live somewhere like NYC, different people like that.  Instead, I live in a smallish (30k pop) town in England with no tower blocks, just normal 70-100 year old English housing.  However, I'm only about 10 minutes away from the shops by foot, and even less by bike. I do like that our town has those little rental scooters.  I've taken those a few times instead of driving.  Though I wish they'd go faster than 15 mph.  I do still use my car a reasonable amount, because we still don't have good public transport here, so any journey outside of the town is done by car.  I'd *love* to live somewhere that e.g. had trams or trolleybuses that served the area, and a good train station to major cities, but these are unfortunately quite uncommon in the UK for a number of reasons. Everywhere that has these services tends to be overpriced, because funnily enough people (despite certain other comments on here) generally want to live in an area that's not super car dependent. 

More places should be built around the car being a last-choice rather than a first-choice.  That's really the big issue here.  As I said, driving a car is... fine, but it's not ideal.  It's also not accessible to some people, I mean young people are a good example, but also think once you're over 70 or so, you probably shouldn't be driving either, and you have the blind, or you could be drunk or otherwise inebriated.  It just creates headaches to be dependent upon cars exclusively.

Talks about a dense city as a place where people walk to the grocery store despite the reality that many of them commute through multiple cities to go to their favorite bulk food distributor which trucks their food in from far away.  But somehow doesn't acknowledge people can walk to the grocery store through quiet, tree lined streets of single family houses just as easily as they can through congested blocks of apartments.

Of course you *could* walk through a dense area of single-family homes to get to the shops.  But, there are a few issues with that;

- You're likely going to have to walk several miles before you get anywhere you want to.  Small convenience stores are uncommon in these areas.  I live less than a mile from two major supermarkets (Lidl and Asda).

- The areas are often built without footway access besides that which runs along the street. So instead of cutting through the neighbourhood, you have to take the long route around.  It's okay (and preferable) for cars to do this, because they move quickly, but at 3 mph, it just makes the journey all that more inconvenient.  This idea comes from the "theory" that alleyways encourage crime, but there's been no evidence to suggest they do. 

- When you do encounter a major road that needs to be crossed, you'll frequently find it's hostile to pedestrians, because it's huge, running at 45-55 mph, and it might take you some time before you find a pedestrian crossing that allows you to safely cross it.  In most US states, it's illegal to cross except at a crossing.  Which is a funny law, lobbied for by the car companies.

- Then you get to your destinations... car park.  That's probably another 5-10 minutes to walk across that.

Here's the problem.  Random bit of Denver, CO, low density suburban place, look how far you have to walk to get to the nearest supermarket (Wal-Mart in this case.)  Essentially nobody is going to do it.   It's a 2 hour round trip, most of it spent walking along a busy three lane dual carriageway.  At least there is a token footpath.

Map link

Like, I get it, you obviously need a car to go to Costco, so those places are always going to have huge car parks and massive feeder roads.  But it's not necessary for a small supermarket.

[Kasper]

Instead, I live in a smallish (30k pop) town in England with no tower blocks, just normal 70-100 year old English housing.  However, I'm only about 10 minutes away from the shops by foot, and even less by bike.

You must recognize that it is possible for low density areas (single family homes) to have short walks to grocery stores, since you are living that.

Urban sprawl is a different problem and housing density isn't the cause or solution.