How much of that is "choice"? People can only live in places that exist, and places that exist must be constructed in compliance with certain government standards, and the government standards for the US for the last fifty years have been all cars, all the time. In most places, it is illegal to build a house without a garage, or a bar without a parking space for every stool.

The law mandates that everyone drive everywhere whether they want to or not.

None of this is true. You can easily find dense walkable places to live. You will just pay more money for a much smaller house. Your living expenses will be higher. And you'll have to rely on public transportation which is a pain in the ass when you have small kids.

It's easy to see why people choose the suburbs.

People will continue to choose the wildly tax-subsidized option, yes.

If people in the suburbs had to pay enough property tax to recoup their share for the cost of roads, water, sewage, electric, telecoms, mail and other ancillary services to their large, non-productive plot of land, they'd likely consider other options.

Suburbs look nice in the short term, before the roads need repaving and the utilities need major overhauls; but the total lifetime cost to the public far exceeds how much tax they bring in.

Dense walkable places exist, but they are diminishing because in most places they are illegal to construct. No new walkable places have been built for nearly a half century, and many of our old ones have been bulldozed to make room for empty parking lots and jammed highways.

>But they choose not to. US population is roughly 1/2 suburban, 1/4 rural, and 1/4 urban. Which backs up my point.

With single-family zoning being the norm in the U.S, it would be unfair to call this a choice. The supply of other types of housing is severely constrained.

There are entire metro areas where there are effectively zero walkable areas. People there don't have much of a choice at all!

There may be forces at work behind that other than individual home preferences.

You are mistaken that they have a choice.