it's definitely not just "high density" and "low density" though, I think what I'm trying to express is a bit more nuanced than just density.

screw AI and Google, I'm gonna ask the real ones...

i wanna be on board but not entirely sure what u r asking

Maybe "urbanized" for the first kind of place

Generally all can fall under the umbrella of urbanization, however I don't think there's an distinctions between types or levels or urbanization

(source: I am studying geography + planning and sociology in college)

If we were to go by the western view of urbanization... In reality, what you see in russia with high rise apartment blocks with greenery in between is practically "sub-urbanized" despite not having the usual characteristics of western suburbs. It's more "sub-urban" as opposed to "suburban" if you know what I mean.

More so, Soviet urbanization is typically 'inorganic' in the way that it is all a very planned effort to build these apartment blocks as they were made to accomadate working class needs. Soviet apartment blocks are constructed in a way that each block contains a whole blocks daily necessities (shops, parks, schools, etc.)

The distinction between the concrete jungle (Lower Manhattan, Shinjuku, etc.) and something like the typical Soviet block has no names... Rather, all of it is urbanization, just under different names. You can call Soviet blocks something like "Soviet Urbanization" and high-rise areas as "Dense Urbanization". Something like that

Hopefully this helps...! Sorry had to flex my knowledge hahaha. The Nuance of urbanization is very hard to categorize, and while I do understand that it is beyond just density... historical context behind why places are urbanized like that can usually be written off as "government wants grid streets because high density and building up is necessary"

Mr. Saint, in such cases you just have to coin your own terminology. It's almost always better than existing ones for referring to the specific thing you notice.

Thanks everyone! Yeah since it's not like I actually have discussions about it with people I can just stick to using my own made up words in my silly head. In Kaliningrad where I live Soviet urbanization is restrained by the old city layout so it's more organic than typical "micro-districts"; they are more dense but still feel organic so they're "low-anthro" for me. I guess that's true for a lot of European cities.

@darek special thanks, that's very insightful

trying to think about how i can relate this to my experiences to provide insight... i've never been outside of the US and most commonly there are small "cities" which spread out instead of building up, i would say rarely/not even hitting mid-rise, though with a lot of paved non-road area. it's like the sprawl around larger city areas(DFW for example) but just there in the middle of a forest