People prefer to drive farther and longer rather than living in higher density housing.

If that were really true, it wouldn’t be necessary to restrict residential zoning density by law because people wouldn’t choose to build multifamily housing even where it was allowed.

In reality, it’s the opposite: dense housing is severely restricted by law, but because so many people do want to live in it, the price gets driven up to the point that they can’t afford to anymore and are forced to drive farther and longer instead.