Just because there's no mass commuting doesn't inherently mean the exurbs are cured of that. People could still shuffle arround funneling roads making traffic to go to the mall. Every has lawns but no one has nature. Everyone is still isolated.
Traditional rural towns and villages are actually quite dense---you must discount the surrounding land. I mention the carbon tax because I think it's that or highwaymen needed to force people to clump up.
\[BTW, I think the variation is key: density should be "fractle" "scale-free" or whatever other similar buzz ord one wants to throw out. Everyone gets stairs and nature.\]
Most towns I think of as pleasant in the US (I’m mostly familiar with western Massachusetts, central CA, and the border towns of NJ/PA) are still basically inaccessible by any mode of transportation other than a car outside of downtown. I don’t believe they would score high on your scale, but maybe I’m missing something!
No reason with enough carbon and land value tax the towns in the places you mention couldn't recover though. Plenty of nice Berkshire and foothill downtowns.
Anecdotally, I've spent a fair amount of time living in both environments, and for me the quality of life difference is night and day. The lack of proper "towns" within commuting distance of NYC means that we have to live in town-y neighborhoods within the city, which are much more expensive to than the 'burbs, and don't come with an acre, a pool, and free parking. The apparent lack of towns means we're eventually going to leave the entire metropolitan area, which is kind of sad, since we like working here very much.