In US and Canada, we've decided that the suburbs are untouchable
Not in Metro Vancouver! Of buildings >= 500' in height, 7 are in Burnaby, 4 are in Vancouver, and 1 each are in Coquitlam and Surrey; under construction are another 4 in Burnaby, 3 in Vancouver, and 1 in New Westminster. There's a dense urban core surrounded by SFHs and then as soon as you cross the border into the suburbs you suddenly get density again.
I'll steelman your argument to be "Europe has less skyscrapers than NYC" (which I think is true, IIRC).
If you need to get away with less super tall buildings, you need to spread out the density elsewhere; that is, have medium density everywhere. In US and Canada, we've decided that the suburbs are untouchable, so the only solution is to have super tall buildings in a few areas. That's how you get 30 story apartments literally next to 2 story houses [0]. This is an intentional choice. I think it's the wrong one, but overcoming it is going to take a lot of convincing.
0 - https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-stock-photo-aerial-view-of...