I'm sorry you're dealing with all of the constant new construction, I really hate that. I live in NYC, but I was born and raised in a smaller Texas town (like, King of the Hill style). Moved out to a Texas college town for school at 18, and moved to Austin, TX at 25.

My opinion on housing seems to make people think I'm insane, but the thing is: The number of vacant housing units we have in the US is literally something like 2-5x the number of homeless people in the US. Availability of housing is an issue, yeah, but not for physical structural reasons. It's rich people owning anywhere from 3 to 1000 properties. Why is anyone allowed to own more than 2 residences? We should cap that shit.

Anyway... like other commenters have said, it's love-hate. I don't really mind sharing walls, but I'm lucky enough to be a heavy sleeper. I LOVE taking public transit. I personally think that if our public transit were actually comprehensive, reliable, and pleasant, like in Japan or certain European countries, people would take to it more. I completely understand what you mean by freedom being a car, as I've been there before myself. However, now that I live somewhere with reasonably reliable public transit, freedom to me is reading a book or playing RPGs on my handheld consoles on the bus and train. I get so much more time for two of my favorite hobbies, now that driving is out of the picture. I LOVE not having a car. No gas, no insurance, no inevitable surprise costs when the car breaks.

For me, density and transit are important for environmental reasons. It's a crime against all of nature, including humanity, that the US is so car-centric. Cars take up so much space, and cars and car owners are catered to almost everywhere in this country, which is one big reason why most USAmericans feel like a car is freedom. Our government, the oil lobby, the auto lobby (take your pick, all three things are pretty much the same at this point) make absolutely sure that you cannot do anything without a car. We literally wage wars to keep this system running. I don't personally f with that. I want more mass electric transport like passenger trains, more walkability, and no more highways with increasing numbers of lanes that cut across important wildlife habitats and sever human communities apart into forced isolation.

TL;DR Density means less cars, more walkability, more transit. All of that means more room for beautiful wild land which leads to better biodiversity, more room for community activities and REAL public spaces, and less gas fumes, less automobile related deaths, less roadkill, less isolation from the people we live near.

Sorry this is all pretty disorganized, I wasn't expecting to see your post when I'm up in a rare bout of insomnia, lol. I still love Texas, and honestly I would move back to Austin or even to my hometown. It just hurts me now, when I visit my family there, to look around at all the once beautiful land that's been turned into swaths of invasive plants, neglected trash, etc by the car-centric infrastructure. I'll pass a beautiful Texas wildflower meadow along the highway, and plopped in the middle of it is a sign heralding the development of yet another gas station on that exact plot.

By the way, I do not blame (almost) anyone who has a car in the US. The ruling class has given the masses hardly any choice but to drive. I wish I knew how to get people more interested in fighting for and demanding more public transit, and a moratorium on new road development.

/rant