Maybe it's because I live on a street that literally has a row of single family homes on one end, and several large apartment buildings on the other, but I don'

Maybe it's because I live on a street that literally has a row of single family homes on one end, and several large apartment buildings on the other, but I don't really see the arguments. You seem to have a lot of internalized assumptions about concepts like traditional neighborhoods vs apartment blocks and how that relates to quality of life. I doubt anything I could say will convince you otherwise, so I'll just say that I personally live in a place where apartments and single family homes are in close proximity, and it is still a quiet residential block, and immensely desirable too.