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Notes -
A kindred spirit!
I'll be honest, I prefer trains by a lot. I grew up in the middle of nowhere where you needed a car to do anything. My family car broke down all the time and left me immobile, so for me driving only ever represented how stark the limitations on my freedom were. When I grew up and moved to the city I assumed things would be better, only to realize that almost nothing that makes me feel less free than being stuck in urban traffic.
That said, I tried as much as possible to keep my personal experiences out of it, and I don't begrudge the existence of the suburbs or anything. I think you're right that the current situation represents at least some people's preferences - O'Toole cites somewhere that large majorities of people say they want to someday live in single family houses, which is unsurprising. I think America should host all forms of urban planning as catered to different people's needs. I also think there's a balance to be walked between accommodating those different needs that isn't walked well (ie, was it reasonable for New York City to bulldoze hundreds of thousands of apartment units to build expressways for people outside of the city?).
I also think the current situation is to burdened by regulatory nudges and government intervention to really get a good look at what people's revealed preferences would look like. For instance, this paper showing that if parking minimums weren't set most businesses, trying to predict the needs of their customers, would probably build less parking than mandated (if this wasn't true, it would odd that we set minimums anyway).
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