You compare a city center with an interchange close to the city limit. You will see stuff like that in Europe too, especially motorways that separate cities from their sprawling neighbors. Houston has interchanges that look way more problematic.
The really fun bit is that the US doesn't need more room to house people. There are more vacant apartments than there are homeless people as is, but nobody can pay the rents.
There are enough highway interchanges in Italy too.
Not every ground that is suitable for streets, is also suitable for living.
The cost between those both are not comparable.
Usage of land is (at least in Italy) carefully determined to fulfill societies needs. Most people prefer to live somewhere, where infrastrcture already exists instead of building up a ghost town without anything nearby.
This isn't a great argument. There is so much open undeveloped space in the US that could be used to house people. This interchange isn't taking space away from anyone.