What goalpost was moved? The freeway is the major producer of pollution, the major concentration of it. This is well documented in the literature on PM2.5: being close to a freeway is a major risk factor but urban areas are not a major risk factor.

If there's a freeway, it's not an urban area, it's a suburban area.

> I hope this helps you make stronger arguments in your next exchange,

I have no idea how you think you poked any holes at all in my argument, but this statement clearly thinks you have! Could you clarify what you think I said was wrong and how?

Living next to a major interchange is definitely living a huuuuge health risk, but again it's mostly a suburban risk.

> There's an argument to be made that cars provide economic and financial mobility, leveraged by the upper classes, which is why cars are not properly demonized. That's a separate topic from health.

If there's an argument, it's very weak. Cars are very expensive, draining the bank accounts of those on the lower end of the economic scale. Yet because we have capped density, those same people on the lower end of the economic scale must travel long distances from farther away, instead of being allowed a place in a city. Density plus transit offer a cheaper alternative without the burden of large car payments, the huge repair bills of cheap used cars, the monthly car insurance payments, and the debt trap of having to buy a car to even get a job.