These threads are full of people making the straight-up weakest arguments for destroying nature...

"...but privacy and noise!"

Ugh, just take all that money you would have spent on the ridiculous driveways, extra lengths of road, utilities, and lawn care and put it into higher quality building materials for the apartments/townhouses.

We build crap quality places in the US and all I hear from my fellow countrymen is "we can't (or don't want to) do it any other way".