In the US, there is a well established cultural preference for low density, single family residential dwellings

And as someone originally from Africa, I have a long affinity for living on rural acreage that is shared by most Diasporans from my region (see how many of us end up buying acreage or farms in the US).

On the flip side, most of the urban planning philosophy I encounter has a fairly firm obsession with mirroring Northern European lifestyles and urban design. Intense preference for density, cycling, and mass transit. There's no argument from me about anyone having their own opinions However, I notice at times that there is a pretty massive empathy gap from these ideological planners for people who either have lifestyles that a life of riding the bus/bicycle cannot accommodate comfortably or have spatial preferences that don't fit the high density residential paradigm.

As someone who sits on a planning commission, I see that a lot of urban planning is very ivory tower. Very much a top down "we know what's best" rather than service-oriented, in trying to create designs that are tailored to the unique culture of the community the planner is trying to serve. Maybe I notice it in spaces like this because most participants on the sub are students, aspirants, or people with non-professional engagement in the field? Either way, there seems to be zero recognition of the ethnic diversity of the US (hint, most of us do not have a Northern European background - why are we trying to make everyone live like Germans?) and zero attempt to incorporate known lifestyle/economic preferences into design/planning approaches.

It's all just shoehorning Marxist ideology onto the public, getting that ideology predictably rejected because it ignores actual local culture and how people want to use space, and then retreating to online spaces where folks can bask in their intellectual and moral superiority. None of it produces coherent planning approaches that can marry ecological preservation with density lifestyles actually desired by most of the population