We seem to be saying the same things over and over, so I will rebut once more and then drop it unless some new themes arise.

My simple argument is that living densely is an environmental good thing, since it leaves other land undeveloped. People who spread out over the land, even though they may have large yards and parks etc. actually take more land out of the equation per person, because of larger per-person home footprints, and road and work and shopping footprints. I think this point is unassailably true, and the example of the 1,600,000 people of Manhattan living in 23 square miles, compared to 1,600,000 people spread out over 1600 square miles in Providence MSA (?), which you gave, is a perfect illustration of this. There is no way Providence is 98.4% unpaved.

Your counterpoints are:

1) that Manhattan has to dispose of its garbage outside its city limits. True, but that also cuts into only a tiny portion of the 1577 square miles of rural land the Manhattanites didn’t build on. Providence also generates garbage and whether they bury it inside or outside the city limits, it still takes land out of use. For any portion that is collected, the garbage trucks have to cover a huge area and use an awful lot more fuel compared to Manhattan, generating much more pollution. You also argue they can dispose of more of it on their property, including composting more, but we don’t know if they actually do that. There are many options for urban composting including residential worm bins and so on. It remains to be seen how big a lead Providence will actually have over New York in locally reducing the waste stream going forward. Perhaps clean incineration of New York garbage will eventually provide electricity for Providence.

2) People in Providence dispose of their bodily waste more cleanly. That might be true, although the energy that goes into digging a quarter million or more septic systems would add up to a lot, and maybe many of the homes are actually connected to municipal sewers for all I know.

3) That denser living people generate more pollution per capita. That is nonsense. They drive much less, they almost certainly need less energy to heat or cool their homes and shops and offices since they are not all standalone buildings, they need less energy to get their mail delivered, and on and on.

4) Manhattanites can’t access nature as easily. True, but not what I was arguing, and besides, they have chosen that lifestyle and are happy with it.

5) Manhattanites who do go out to the country need cars and roads. True, but only a portion of the population drives, and they only leave town some of the time, compared to suburban familes who drive everywhere every day in multiple vehicles, and thus generate a far greater need for roads.

6) If the dense-living people don’t use a piece of rural land, someone else will. That may be true, but it is equally true for Providence. Nothing is stopping a developer from building a sprawling new development next door to it. Fortunately there’s still a lot of rural land left undeveloped, and for that we can be much more grateful to the people of New York, who didn’t use a lot of it, than to the people of Providence, who did.

7) Manhattan is not self-sustaining. This is true: you can’t plough the land your house is sitting on. Again, by condensing the land their house is sitting on, they have left more land available to be ploughed, compared to the people of Providence, who have despoiled much more farmland with their sprawl. Sure, many households in Providence could have vegetable gardens, but in fact, they mostly don’t. Plus, it’s a highly inefficient use of labour for everyone to grow their own food. If some of the organic gardeners of Providence can sell their produce at a premium to hipster New Yorkers, and in exchange buy Tommy Hilfiger ties, everyone wins.