Great points Giulio! I think great telepresence and a good UBI could both easily cause de-densification dips, particularly in our most dysfunctional and overpriced cities. We're seeing some dips now, during Covid.

But if you were to ask me to predict how many Americans will live in urban spaces in 2100, I'd bet it will be higher than our current 75%.

Many folks will leave big cities for smaller, greener, cleaner, urban spaces that most reflect their values, but I bet the great majority will still stay urban. Cities just have too many useful shared urban assets and those assets will only get more amazing in coming decades. Even tough issues like traffic congestion and regional transport, allowing us to escape to wild nature on weekends, at the "dascha", will be solved by air taxis and high speed rail in coming decades.

Ed Glaser's The Triumph of the City, 2011 is a great overview of why cities continue to win as our preferred form of living. My bet is that by 2100 even higher percentages of us will live in cities and towns, large and small (25K and above) both in the developed and developing world.