Since the end of WWII US cities have grown out, not up, producing endless miles of single-family home suburbia, because that's what middle-class people who could afford it wanted. I can see the attraction but it comes with costs, including a lot more driving. Another cost is loss of social cohesion when people get to live with only others like themselves so don't understand working-class life or the results of their political decisions. 

There is also the loss of the feeling that one lives in and is involved with a city. I saw that when I lived in suburban Orange County, California. All the little cities there had grown together into one big mess. People didn't say they lived in Fullerton, Anaheim or wherever, they said they lived in Orange County, and very few paid any attention to their local city councils. Why would anyone who lives in Eugene's endless suburbs care about downtown, etc.?