Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't really have real cities in the US = there are a few exceptions but most of the time it's just a very tiny center and a lot of people living away from the center. That's not what a traditional city looks like.
Why does the US need to have traditional cities? I grew up in a high density city overseas and I can see the appeal of both types of city. I personally prefer low density, car centric cities (obviously we need to finish solving the emissions problem from cars, but that's separate).
That’s one major reason American infrastructure is so bad. Towns have to balance their books, and that means they cannot afford to maintain their infrastructure until the federal government, which is not legally required to balance its books, borrows a ton of money to give away for basic infrastructure to be maintained.