To me, whether there's enough space for cars and walkability are both part of how dense a city is. Leaving room for cars must make a city less dense and usually less pleasant for pedestrians as well; in the same way, a suburban area with single family homes and limited low-rise apartments needs car infrastructure because public transport gets worse the longer each trip is and the fewer riders there are.

You can accommodate both regions within one city, but they can't overlap without compromising one or the other (edit: although this compromise is a desirable middle ground for some people). Note that Pontevedra built huge free parking areas on the outskirts of its urban area. For their whole city it's not either-or, but in any given place they've had to make a decision.