I think the Gentle density ( 5-6 story building) with the ground floor having commercial like cafes and stores with Bus/ Tram as Transport are great for any City.

Edit : Thanks for the Likes guys

The neat thing about increasing density in some areas is that it preserves the lower densities for those that want it.

By these numbers, my neighborhood of townhomes and apartments should have light rail. We actually have a bus every 60 minutes on weekdays that doesn’t run after 9pm.

Vienna, Austria seems to check most people's boxes density wise.

Great video, but please use metric alongside imperial! Having to convert everything to sq km just to understand the scale is a bit of a pain.

Tall towers are wonderful to live in at the upper floors though - you get great views, without all the noise from street level, but are typically only 2 mins by elevator away from the street.

Tokyo achieves massive density with primarily 3-6 floor residential buildings on side streets, with most businesses along main streets. IMO this is the way to go. Tokyo can have crazy busy streets, but then you turn a corner and it's totally quiet and clearly primarily residential so ppl respect the conditions.
By contrast, I live in downtown Vancouver, where we have primarily 20+ story buildings all throughout downtown and I'll tell you it is WAY louder and less enjoyable because when buildings are over 10 stories cars and pedestrians stop realising they're on a primarily residential block; you start feeling invisible when buildings are at that height or taller because it's past "human scale". It also seems to make housing more expensive because the city is progressively rezoned to allow that increased density in small patchwork changes, one neighbourhood at a time. This drives up the value of the land as suddenly you're allowed giant dense towers, as opposed to Tokyo where basically the entire city would technically allow it, but it's not worth it because it's cheaper to build 5 cheap low rises on cheaper land than 1 giant concrete monster on small patches of prime high-density-allowed land.

Houten in Netherlands is a example of lower density suburb that still transit oriented. Average density of the urban area is 6k people/km², most buildings are single family homes and there is a lot of green areas, but around the train stations it's denser with apartments and commerce. And one thing that makes the lower density work is using bicycles to solve the last mile problem, instead of buses.

6:28 -- FYI "5 over 1" doesn't actually refer to 5 floors of residential over 1 floor of retail. Rather, it's based off of North American building codes -- up to 5 floors of wood-frame construction (IBC type III or type V) on top of one floor of fire-resistant steel-frame/concrete (Type I). The bottom floor can be retail, but it's often a parking garage, building amenities, more residential units, or a mix.

From an engineering standpoint, 8-12 stories is the most optimal (maybe 5 stories for "lower density" areas). If buildings get taller they need more reinforcement, more elevators, and complex plumbing systems to keep them operational, which increases costs exponentially. Then of course you need to add adequate green spaces.

08:38   I live in a 30 floor tower and I am always connected to street level via my elevator. I can hear the music and people, smell the food, and take the elevator down and go for a walk in my neighbourhood. Height has no impact on my relationship to my neighbourhood, and I have an amazing view (being higher than the other towers) and I live near the top floor... I still feel very connected.

That Hong Kong example shows why the definition matters so much. Hong Kong is only not dense in your example because you are considering the entire territory. However, that land is undeveloped because it is not legally allowed to be developed. In the actual habitable land of Hong Kong, it is insanely dense.

Imagine you have an insanely dense core and the boundary stops right there. Now imagine you have that same core and you extend the boundary out several miles in every direction. Practically speaking, these have the same level of density, but the defined level of density has huge variance.

Shoutout to the dutch model which maintains lower density in its cities compared Paris or Madrid yet maintains higher than average density outside its cities which creates a sense of tranquility and liveliness across most of its built up areas

5 over 1 actually doesn't refer to the number of floors, it refers to ibc type 5 (wood-frame) construction over type 1 (fireproof)

This video is a perfect explanation of why SB79 in California is the most important legislation passed probably ever.

I live in a skyscraper in Chicago and I love it! I do not own a car and can easily visit many parts of the city with ease.

One thing I'd like to note that you touched on in the beginning a bit but didn't go into depth on in the density level examples themselves: Density can take many different forms.  There are plenty of roughly one-acre blocks in Philadelphia with 35, 40, sometimes even 50 little townhomes/rowhouses on them.  Each of those buildings could comfortably support as few as one but perhaps as many as four or even five people (depending on the specific height of the building and floor plan).  On average, that easily clears the density needs to support a metro system, without ever getting into 5 over 1s or having somebody living above or below you.  I only mention it because sometimes people have a reflexive "I hate this" response to apartment buildings like you see in DC or Paris.  Most of Tokyo is planned around this idea of tightly packing narrow/small footprint single-family homes right next to each other, and their subway system is legendary.  Good urbanism comes in many forms.

New residential apartments in Polish cities are all 7 to 8 stories.
In the most densely populated city in the world that is Dhaka, Bangladesh, under 7200 sft land area, it is capped to 10 storied and 14 stories for above 7200 sft land and all having building footprint of 50%. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, there is no mid density rather  it is a combination of low dense 2 to 4 storied landed houses and  40-50 stories of high dense condos.

Personally, I have a fondness for the 5-6 floor height with ample enclosed court yards.

I would argue that 6 floors tall is still within the natural boundary where the buildings don't create a claustrophobic feeling at street level without really wide streets. Compared to 10+ floors that I think for sure creates that tunnel feeling (at least when you live closer to the poles and have the sun very low in the sky significant parts of the year), especially if it is the median height, and not just the occasional building.

You could have a subway in your single family neighborhood iff it was on the route anyway.  Like if you're in a polycentric metro right between two major dense areas, then it might make sense to put a station in the middle with a park and ride.