But not everyone wants to live in a sprawling suburb, but we've engineered financial and educational systems and property rights norms that make it difficult for even those who wish to live in a dense city to choose to do so.
Maybe if you're worried about CO2 emissions having those CO2 eating beings in your backyard could be a better option.
Probably not easy to quantify.
Also, grasses can be great CO2 sink as well, depending on the conditions and maintenance routine: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4534/is-g...
But OK let's not nitpick, I'm not talking about only regarding CO2, it was just an example of something that is relevant these days for a lot of people.
My point is that would be interesting to study this as matter of what kind of life would be better, given different metrics.
In my opinion, those constituents have a right to do that (localized decision-making). I see a lot of comments on HN that deride arguments made for neighborhood character or quality of life, but it is a very real thing that is important to lots of people. Not everyone wants to live in a dense city. Most of the consternation against the less-dense areas are from people who want to live in those areas because they are attractive, but they also then demand it change to accommodate them on dimensions like zoning, which I don't think is fair.