He didn’t say it has bad traffic, he said it’s dangerous. I grew up in a place like this - isolated houses along a 2-lane road through the countryside with no shoulder. It’s a local road, but the speed limit is typically 55 mph because the housing density is very low. There’s not much traffic, but the traffic that is there is flying down the curvy road just trying to hang on. All of the stores are centralized in small towns and villages spaced 20 miles apart or so.

Yeah I just have no reference. Here villages spaced 30 km from each other doesn't happen. It's usually walking distance.

To get a better idea of that sort of context, look at Texas or Montana in Google Maps and zoom in on one of the low-population areas. You'll see plenty of little towns with no public transit that would be literally days away from each other if walking.

You hit the nail on the head. I live in rural southern Missouri in the Ozark Mountains.

Likely restrictive zoning. In much of North America, commercial and mixed-use buildings are not permitted in areas zoned for single-family residences.