A major problem in the US is each person taking up more and more space. I live in CT, a state having no population growth but with subdivisions and shopping centers rapidly consuming land where farms and woods had been.
I'm 3 miles beyond downtown Hartford, in a turn of the (20th) century neighborhood of 50x100 ft lots That's about eight homes per acre. And many are multi-family homes, so the neighborhood probably averages 12 or more households per acre.
City lots are commonly 25 ft wide and you can pack a lot of those into a small area. It doesn't leave much room for lawns, but most people just cover lawns with fertilizer and then complain about having to mow the grass.
Not only do people take up less space with small lots, but they also create a dense enough residential area to support public transit plus neighborhood groceries & stores & bars & parks & schools & other good things.
North and west of us (slightly higher and upwind of the factories) are neighborhoods built for the managers and higher paid people of the offices and factories where people in my neighborhood worked. Those neighborhoods are mostly 1/4 acre lots, which were pretty luxurious in 1900.
Nowadays, status seeking people aren't generally content with something as small as a 1/4 acre. Even though they'll spend more time bitching about lawn care than doing anything worthwhile with all their land. And, with no prospect of them walking to the bus stop or a playground or a store, lots of extra land is wasted for roads and parking spaces to handle all their driving.
A lot of nature would be preserved if Americans didn't waste so much of it.