In fact, there is strong evidence that at least 2 people in the US prefer SFH when presented with multiple choices: myself, and the person I was replying to. I suspect we are not alone, which you acknowledge elsewhere.
If you want to shift society away from SFH, it might be helpful to engage with some of the reasons people prefer them, and reasons they are wrong. From what I've seen, part of what keeps exclusionary zoning laws in place is that some people think living in multi-family dwellings is inferior to living in SFH[1], and in my comment I was trying to point out the incorrectness of that thinking. I'm confused why you think I shouldn't do so, since it supports your cause. This is just an internet forum where people are talking, so it's not like that precludes other discussion.
By the way, I already upvoted the bean comment, it's a great comment. I think it's okay to talk both about laws and preferences, and their intersection.
[1]: People have made this argument in this very thread, in fact.
The argument is not that no one ever wants to live inside single family home. It is that many people are fine with different housing and dont have such option.
Land had value. You can tear down. SFH and build anything allowed by city code. Want a bigger garage? No problem. New fruit tree out back? Can do.
That flexibility is priced in.
I live in a very large townhome complex much of which is built on top of an underground parking garage. There dozens of townhomes here, intermixed with condos as well.
There isn't any land for me to put a tree on, there is a commonly owned green area (a very nice one!) but people can't plant whatever they want there since it is under common ownership.
I'd say most of the townhome communities around where I am at are arranged like this.
I'm familiar with row houses from traveling to other cities, but I haven't (rarely?) seen anything like that here in the Seattle area.
The latest trend is SFHs built on 3000 sqft lots.
Honestly at that point, a townhome complex with a common yard seems very preferable.
Are you really arguing that if you asked people many wouldn't state that they would prefer to live in a detached home?
Some people would like the option to save money and buy less housing in an area - see micro apartments. Some people would be willing to spend as much as they can to live in a desirable area, but cannot afford a SFH there so they buy a SFH in a different area. Both of those options are limited by the near omnipresent restrictions on housing types outside of central cities.
The comment elsewhere in this discussion by "enragedcacti" is spot-on: if the law requires everyone to eat black beans, it will seem like everyone strongly prefers black beans.