How does one determine the ideal population density for a civilization

>>8559575
You mean like what the hipsters are doing now?
Why not just use capitalism?
If people don't want shitty housing, they won't take it. Let the shitty shipping container houses collapse and have someone that knows what they're doing come in and build actual housing.

>>8559587
Everything that I've read seems to imply quality of life and overall life satisfaction seems to increases as population density decreases. I've never seen any real counter-arguments for why a higher population density would be better aside from stupid shit hipsters would care about.

>>8559609
Quality of life is relative to what people can afford.
Obviously people have a higher quality of life if their homes are bigger and they're friendlier with their neighbors and whatnot.
But not everyone can afford that.
Lots of people simply choose smaller housing because that's what they can afford--society deems that they are only worth that much housing.
Lots of people also choose denser neighborhoods because it's close to work. Imagine having to drive an hour to work every day. There is a correlation between depression and driving time.

>>8559652
Ok, fine. If you want to base quality of life entirely on economics, what are some statistics I can use to compare household income to population to cost of living?

>>8559661
I'm not really sure where you would find a metric on cost of living in a given neighborhood or zipcode. The problem with cost of living as it's known is that it can swing rather dramatically in certain parts of a city, so any metric you find on cost of living for a city may be correct in the sense that it is averaged, but incorrect in the sense that there may be no neighborhoods that are within a standard deviation of that average.