Environmentalists push for high-density housing because it’s a way to lower emissions and conserve habitat. The basic idea is more people on less land, the better for the biosphere. Single family homes usually don’t belong in this picture. But they can.

Single family homes can rely on renewable and low-carbon sources of energy. They can have built-in chargers for electric vehicles and be near public transportation. They can be on small lots. Owners of new homes built on previously undeveloped land could pay into a state conservation fund for land acquisitions, in effect giving back to nature what was taken in housing, resulting in no net loss of wild habitat.

Why not just build high apartment buildings and save even more land for the critters? Because most American families (households with children) want to live in single family homes and if they can’t get what they want where they live, they will move away if they can and will likely buy homes with higher emissions and bigger lots, because that’s what available and allowable in much of the country.

Cities that pursue strict density agendas to the point that the supply of single family homes cannot meet demand will eventually become unattractive places for families to live. Many will move away, leaving behind those better suited to dense apartment living: single adults, childless couples, and low-income households with few options or essential local support networks.

Per the USDA , urban areas comprise only 3.3% of land use in America. Urban areas are not a major source of habitat loss in the U.S. That honor goes to agriculture, which takes up half of the land used in this country. A single cow requires 1-2 acres a year (3-5 acres if grass-fed). One acre of a dense development of two-story single family homes could have 8 - 10 homes on 4,000 - 5,000 sq ft lots (or around 30-40 residents, assuming most homes occupied by families with children).

How much undeveloped land would be needed to put a million Americans in single family homes on lots of 5,000 sq feet, assuming 3 members per household? Roughly 25 individuals per acre, or about 40,000 acres in the entire US.

Let’s assume all of those acres were developed at the urban fringe of densifying cities with a shortage of family housing and the land was bought from US farmers and ranchers. This is not an unreasonable assumption: US farmers and ranchers have plenty of land to sell. Over the past 7 years alone, agricultural land in the US has decreased by 30 million acres, from 900 million acres in 2017 to 870 million in 2024. This includes pasture for grazing, which has also shrunk over the past few years, but not as fast as the number of cattle (from 96.5 million in 2002 to 87.2 in 2024). Much of that land is being returned to wild habitat or sold off for other uses.

Thanks to improving agricultural efficiency and lower beef consumption, U.S. farmers and ranchers don’t need as much land as they used to. Let’s put some of that land to good use by building dense developments of single family homes on it.