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It’s because they know nothing different and are justifiably afraid of change initiated by governance.
I’m going to guess WaPo makes an emotional/psychological argument. If I were trying to mislead the masses I’d tell them that everyone else enjoys their daily commute and uses it as a time to destress.
Having lived in both, I rather like being in a dense neighborhood like I am at the moment, but long term, I simply doubt I’ll be able to afford it, which I think may be a pretty significant factor for many people. I already live at the extreme northern edge of my city, but if my rent goes up by more than another few hundred dollars a month, I doubt I could afford to find another place in the city that isn’t in a terrible neighborhood. NIMBYs make sure that the housing crisis keeps going strong, aided by the byzantine process of community board review for any project that doesn’t manage to get killed early on.
Prices are going up in all the similarly dense cities in my region. My options for the future look likely to be sprawl in my home region, with somewhat tolerable conditions despite bad Democratic policies, or sprawl in another state, with worse conditions and worse Republican policies. It’s unlikely I could even afford a place in a nice urban region in red states, as their lower cost of living tends to go hand in hand with substantially lower wages. I looked into it at one point, and while apartments in that city were much nicer for maybe 40% of the cost, I would have had to take about a 50% pay cut, while also needing to buy and maintain multiple motor vehicles, as public transit was essentially nonexistent there.