@Binro its all about density. Look at Amsterdam, its all tightly packed 5 or 6 story buildings throughout the whole city, then u get to city limits and they just suddenly stop and now u are in country: fields where they grow food.. Compare to an American city, few hyper dense spots of skyscrapers in city centre and then within a few hundred metres it goes to hyper *low* density and continues for dozens or hundreds of kilometres with this hyper low density suburban sprawl.

Services like public transport, shops, parks, schools, police, fire-fighters, hospitals etc. need a certain amount of people in their catchment area in order to be able to function economically (Either be profitable, or have enough tax from the citizens it serves to pay for it). In Amsterdam you can plop down a tram line or a bus route and the catchment area that's within walking distance of it will have enough people for the route to be worth running.
In USA, you cant do that, the lenght/cost of the line vs how many people it will serve doesnt work out. It would operate at a loss or need to be subsidised and you cant do that everywhere.

The thing that exacerbates the problem is huge numbers of people living in the lower density areas work in the high density area. These range from people with higher income and more wealth who want nice suburban homes in greenspace-rich gated communities and people with lower income who can't afford to rent or buy a home closer to the urban center.

I fall into the latter category. Many people like me would love to be able to take the bus or light rail to & from work. Wealthier people (and some lower income people) abhor that idea and would prefer to drive their own personal vehicle.

This requires more roads and more lanes going into and through the city and more parking space within the city. With more spaces devoted to personal motor vehicles, there less space for residential development and communal greenspace.

I really enjoyed Europe public transport system and it’s not all dependent on extreme density

It was just as nice in less dense Munich as in Amsterdam.

While Italy had great high speed rail connections between cities the public transport in those dense cities wasn’t that good

I recall a picture of the early days of the NYC subway when they were pushing the tracks further out into Queens (IIRC). It was an elevated rail platform surrounded by miles and miles of farmland.

Good public transit *generates* density. People want to live near rapid, frequent, and convenient transit.

Or you live in Western Washington where public transit has become a weird toy for wealthy techies imported from nations that have actual public transit. The wealthiest areas and cities are getting rail but none of it connects to the people who actually need it, only to the people who don’t feel like plugging in their Teslas.