OPINION article Front. Sustain. Cities Sec. Urban Greening Can a city be dense and green? Bioeconomy Science Institute, Rotorua, New Zealand Select one of your emails You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers: Notify me on publication Please enter your email address: If you already have an account, please login You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here Abstract Can a city be dense and green? At first glance, high-density urban living appears to contradict the ideal of a green lifestyle, particularly when contrasted with single-family homes on large plots surrounded by abundant vegetation. Yet this apparent contradiction is largely perceptual. In reality, cities need not choose between density and environmental quality. When thoughtfully designed, compact urban environments may represent one of the most effective pathways toward a sustainable and environmentally responsible future. This view is supported by McDonald et al. (2023), who argue that denser cities can enhance ecosystem services depending on design, and by Madureira and Monteiro (2021), who explore the compatibility of density and green infrastructure performance.This argument begins with the observation that the concept of "green" is inherently multidimensional (e.g., environmental impact, energy efficiency, carbon emissions, resource use, biodiversity, and human health and well-being). Public perception, however, often privileges the dimension that is most immediately visible: the personal experience of living close to nature. In doing so, we risk overlooking the collective nature of sustainability -the reality that individual lifestyle preferences can carry broader environmental consequences beyond our immediate surroundings.At the Bioeconomy Science Institute (BSI) in New Zealand, we previously explored related ideas in a conceptual framework for circular bio-based cities (Elustondo et al., 2023). That work suggested that urban circularity is often translated into context-specific actions shaped by local cultural, geographic, and socioeconomic conditions. While this flexibility is valuable, it also reveals