Chinese prefer to live in city center, next to the hospital.
Chinese Economics Thread
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The main issue is that as a government you also don't necessarily want to provide your population with everything certain parts of the population want to consume because it will create negative externalities. That's why stuff like drunk driving, drug possession, or gambling are banned and criminalized. Mass suburbanization causing power usage to increase due to detached housing being less energy efficient than apartment complexes is an example of this. Difficulty with managing scarce land resources when China's population density is 4x that of the suburbanized US (8x if you look only east of the Heihe-Tengchong line) is another issue.
And the thing is China's urban real estate market is heavily commodified, prices generally indicate where people want to live. A large part of this is influenced by the family registration system and parents wanting to change residency to places with better education resources and the inequitable distribution of these resources, which is a legitimate issue in China that the government is trying to fix with their unified national market strategy. This results in the highest home prices being in the core of tier 1 cities. Chinese families definitely prioritize other factors than living space/yard space primarily when choosing a home (not saying it's not a factor but not the primary one).
The lack of sub-urbanization in China is a direct product of civil planning. The hukou system, the concentration of education, jobs, and infrastructure, the prioritization of coastal (e.g. exports-driven) development, among other factors. Also, China deliberately built up its economic hubs, there was nothing unintentional about it.
But China isn't Japan or South Korea. It doesn't actually have a lack of space. If you want to use the US as a comparison, most of the US is under-populated. If you ever went to the Mid-West or the South, you'd understand how much of the space in the US is not or barely developed. China may have more population, but it is extremely concentrated into certain regions, while in most of the country, the population density is actually lower than Europe. It definitely has the space to sub-urbanize.
Failure to do so will have consequences. Continued emigration is one of them - the US may have done China a favor by becoming unfriendly to immigration, but there's plenty of other countries elite Chinese are heading to - Canada, Australia, New Zealand, among others. Another consequence is demographics - same situation as in Japan and South Korea, people don't want to have children in super dense cities where they barely have enough living space themselves. All of this might be solvable via policy, but I brought this up primarily because you seemed to imply that living quality was somehow inversely correlated with large living spaces, when every Chinese person I've ever spoken to indicated the opposite opinion.
Also you are automatically vulnerable with concentrated population if it goes to all out war or a fallout scenario.
Sub urbanization isn’t the same as “American urban planning.”
Nobody is advocating for Chinese cities to look like Los Angeles or god forbid Dallas. But for all the moaning of teenagers and young adults of the tedium of suburban living, it cannot be denied that the single family home model still has its appeal amongst many for its reasons.
Take the criticisms that many have of suburban living being the lack of culture and entertainment options. Well newsflash, a city can only have those things with a sizeable upper and middle class willing to patronize those venues like in NYC, Paris, or London, while in the rest of those country's cities life is pretty suburban and mundane. The same goes for China where you have Beijing and Xian that have all the cultural assets just due to the sheer scale of their inherited history, or wealthy Shanghai that has all the high end shops and vibrant nightlife. Meanwhile, in the vast majority of China, even in cities with populations of 10 million life is going to be, as stated before, simple and relatively by the numbers.
That's why in those scenarios for people living outside cosmopolitan cultural centers, comfort is prioritized. And for all intents and purposes, the sprawl of high rises that has become to define the Chinese urban landscape may have been necessary to house such a large population. (I myself have always defended these aginst naysayers who say they're all soulless commie blocks) But when all's said and done, they are hardly comfortable or conducive to raising a family. I've had Chinese colleagues in the US who've just become parents tell me that despite the convenient public transportation in many Chinese cities, constantly having to take their kids everywhere on the bus and subway especially when they're still very young is very burdensome. Owning a car is difficult as well, making day trips to a nature retreat impossible, meaning that all their recreational life is going to be in the city. And therein has always been the appeal of American single family homes, because with a large front and backyard you can have adequate space for your kids to play, you can invite your friends over for parties. You can't do that in a cramped apartment with the space limitations and the noise restrictions, so life quickly becomes convenient only in some respects and for the most part soulless.
Now yes, of course American suburbia is plagued with numerous issues such as sprawling out too much and thus becoming hotspots for traffic jams, homes being unaffordable etc. The point as someone else stated isn't to emulate that model, its to recognize merits, the reasons for its continued appeal despite its known faults, and how China can incorporate it into its urban fabric to make life for its citizens more comfortable and more conducive to raising families.
Also you are automatically vulnerable with concentrated population if it goes to all out war or a fallout scenario. I used to detest the suburb with long commute for every necessities and while I still enjoy living in a city center, I would vastly prefer a detached house to raise a family and retire.
My look on China's natural gas situation with respect to increased domestic production and pipeline import + less LNG import.
China has an enormous middle-class. Pretty much every major city in China will have a vibrant night life. And culture. And landmarks.
China is a country that's still undergoing massive urbanization and development.
By contrast, United States was a mostly urbanized country. Post WW2 suburbanization was driven by several things. First, it was given a massive boost by post WW2 spending like the GI bill, mass motorization which made car ownership affordable plus mass transit that became motorized (which destroyed those rail car networks like the one in San Francisco) allowing mass expansion of public transport. On top of that, Eisenhower's interstate program plus subsequent development of absolutely massive freeway networks, led to an "exodus" of veterans and higher-income Americans into those nice "American Dream" suburban villages. It also led to a massive growth in low-density urban sprawl.
It was also a "downward pyramid" with suburbanization spearheaded by higher income Americans, particularly middle class Whites who were the target demographic for mortgage reform and affirmative action. It trickled down very gradually, and did not reach some tranches of America's population at all. Either way, America was in a very different development period in 1950s-70s. It was already a developed country then, unlike China today which is only just attaining that status and in very different circumstances.
China is still likely not done urbanizing. The world is also a very different place than 1940s America. It is entirely reasonable to assume that innovation and development will actually make suburbs very unattractive to Chinese people.
Also, the part about Americans and families and backyards... that's all fluff in the 21st century. House ownership has much less to do with wanting kids to play in the backyard (everyone is on their laptop or smartphone, including kids), and much more about a type of lifestyle that's desirable to Americans. Which is about big homes, privacy, and a preference for non-noisy environments.
For the actual family oriented Americans, owning a house is much more about having extra rooms for kids and your office then about having a backyard. Backyards are actually shrinking and getting smaller on new builds. Also, just the idea of settling down. No rents, no renegotiations, no constant change of neighbors (typically).