Personally, my goal is quality of life, and stability of the food supply. I don't understand why I can't walk to work, walk to buy fresh vegetables after work and walk home to cook a good meal - or walk to a good restaurant. I actually do some of that now, and I see so many of my co-Americans sitting in traffic for 1-2 hours each way, or 2-4 hours a day.. both ways..breathing in that CO2, getting irritated and wasting their time, and making the food supply unpredictable in the long term. There is a long term problem... but the short and long term solution seems one in the same.. don't worship suburbs, have jobs, decent grocery stores, entertainment, restaurants, and affordable housing all in walking distance.
Do remember that YOUR definition of quality of life is not necessarily the same for everyone else.
There are cities, densely populated that will give you pretty much what you want.
However, that pretty much necessitates a densely packed urban setting...that is something I do NOT want to live in.
I do not want to share walls neighbors like I did as a college student....
I want a place with my own yard and garage/patio where I can park a car and motorcycle...where I can keep my very large wood burning offset smoker for BBQ'ing...and my cord of wood I used to fuel it...I want to have room back there to set up and do crawfish boils with friends and have gatherings,etc.
I'll trade "walkability" for that....I like to buy in bulk anywhere, and don't want to have to walk somewhere every day to get food to cook. I see what's on sale each week at the various grocery stores in the area...and I hit those for what's on sale and build my weekly menus from that.
I also buy in bulk from Costco when that makes $$ sense....
No way I could get home with a Costco load walking, or on a bike, etc...that 15lb brisket alone would be a bitch to get home on public transport if I had to do that.
So, suburbia is a utopia for some and their lifestyle.....not for you and that is cool...thankfully the US is a large country and there is somewhere to please most everyone .
Just please don't try to force your happiness on others....
And so far...I've not seen even a hint of food shortage yet in my long lifetime.....