It's very difficult to find a place like our house in Italy in the US: we could walk to schools, grocery stories, pastry shops, our doctor, cafes, pizza place, a few barbers and a tram stop to go downtown.
And that's in a suburb of a mid-size city (about 300K).
Now, it’s not perfect: the T breaks down all the time due to criminal underinvestment, my bike commute is noticeably faster than driving through the traffic, the mass transit schedule is such that any route with multiple transfers is insane.
But I’m going to guess that the Italian and Dutch versions of this aren’t perfect either; it’s a matter of deciding which flaws to live with.
Even dense US towns are zoned against density. Somerville, Massachusetts had a rude awakening 5 years ago when they discovered the entire city is in violation of the zoning code. Every single home is out of compliance for one reason or another.
That's fine, but why do old people need it legally mandated that everyone has to do that?
What's the justification for that?
Also, it varies from city to city (and within cities). Although most of the 20-35 crowd probably would prefer a denser city, old people prefer owning homes with lawns, so they wouldn't even want to live in that kind of place to begin with.