Not American (aus), and not op, but I grew up and moved between semi-rural, suburban, and now am in a city. Now, the human being is a pretty adaptable creature

Not American (aus), and not op, but I grew up and moved between semi-rural, suburban, and now am in a city. Now, the human being is a pretty adaptable creature that normalises what they experience every day, so a lot of these are things I only noticed after moving from environment to environment. I think I got just as much additional activity time in the rural setting as I did growing up in suburbia, because trips to playground or ovals or swimming pools or tennis courts all involved car trips. Ditto shopping, movies, etc. Of course, now I'm an adult, I know commute times need to be added as a downside. Where the suburbs turned into "hell on earth" was during the teen years, when you're struggling for independence/stimulation, but you're stuck in the teenage equivalent of solitary confinement. The internet came just in time for me. As I've said before, it all just seemed normal then, but as I moved around, I learnt that there were places in the world you could walk to the supermarket/movies/library. Where buses came more than once every 2 hours and didn't involve a half hour wait to get what was notionally a few km's down the road. Where your friends actually lived close enough for you to visit. And those facilities where you had to get into the car? Well now they are just down the road too and you can walk, or catch the sub-15 minute public transport straight there. We're definitely going to give the urban child thing a go if we have children. Though part of that will necessarily mean a change of attitude. We no longer want a 4 bedroom house with a backyard for kids, primarily because large parts of what we would of tried to have gained by having such space can instead be outsourced to community facilities instead.