Oh they certainly aren't fungible!

In fact, urban apartment complexes in dense cities are much much MORE valuable and desirable than suburban homes. There are 10s of millions of people who would rather live in a desirable place like downtown NYC than the place they are currently living in, if it was as affordable as suburban homes.

The facts that back this up, are housing prices. Housing prices in cities are 4x higher than they are in the countryside, which, due to the laws of supply and demand, means that lots of people prefer city living to suburban living.

The statistics I've seen in the US are that about 1/3 of people would prefer living in city centers, 1/3 would prefer suburbia, and 1/3 don't care. And currently 80% of people live in suburbia because city centers are expensive. Apartments and suburban houses aren't the same but our tax and regulatory structure is strongly pushing people towards the later even if that's not what they want.