I work daily with people from Boston. I think downtown is not that different in terms of willingness to have similar lifestyle.

I think many don’t know how good density living means and it would be totally doable also in the US, not overnight. I guess there is still a big of a perception: Without your big house and garden your are nothing/« you didn’t make it » . Once this is gone I guess it could go fast.

European cities also aren't that dense, generally speaking. Building high is an exception and only pushed recently, in places with infrastructure already present.

Buildings 5 stories high get similar or higher density than anything but the most extreme high rise neighbourhoods and are a better place to live. Easily get to 15k per km2 without highrises.

In many major European cities, a place like that will cost a lot more than nice house in the suburbs. In fact we ended up moving to a house in the suburbs in large part because because we could not afford an apartment like that.