Comparing my apartment in Boston to mine in SF is like day and night. Here, I feel like I have my own place. It is a tad bit like a hotel room, but I don't hear much neighbor noise compared to the racket in Russian Hill.
Having a continual uneasiness due to random loud noises or having your own life impacted (listening to TV at a whisper, for example) is not human-friendly.
I think apartments get a bad rap because they are built with paper thin walls. It is more expensive to build with bigger spaces and proper noise control, but it has made a giant difference in my standard of living.
Please don't put out blanket claims like this and pretend they're obviously true, and then use them as justification for your particular view of how society should structure its geography. Some people hate densely populated areas. It would be utterly detrimental to my mental health to live in one. So if I have the choice to not live in an urban area, I'm going to take it.
I have a 45 minute commute each way every day to work. Long commutes suck. Living in the city sucks way more.
Of course it is good for the economy that people can commute effectively. But by building more lanes we are choosing spread out cities dominated by highways where no one wants to live and instead drive to work from the suburbs.
And there are alternatives. We can choose more densely populated cities where the streets are dominated by pedestrians and people commute shorter distances mostly by public transport. Much better for the environment, and most importantly, better for people.
And we are making that choice whenever we chose between using the land for new roads or using the land for new pedestrian buildings and railways.