Back when I lived in a far more suburban city I was able to play golf with friends, go hiking, and take road trips to see places and people. Restaurants were much more affordable and I rarely needed a reservation, stores weren't completely swarmed with people during the times I could visit them (which makes buying everything online easier). Everyone had a washer and dryer. People invited friends over for BBQs in their backyards. On weekends it was actually faster to go places than on weekdays, so I could visit people who lived in faraway parts of town and it was no big deal (in NYC I barely get to see my friends in Queens, it takes forever to get there). After dealing with so many people and broken down subways a lot of days I'm just tired and want to go home, so I end up just being home a lot.
Now, there are a lot of reasons I like living in NYC and choose to do so, but there are serious trade offs to living in a very dense environment and there are some awesome things about living in a low density environment.
I'm a strong introvert. I enjoy being alone, and I'm happy living a quiet atomized life. I don't like being social, and a quiet suburban lifestyle is perfect for me.
Previously I lived for a few years in Madrid, an extremely dense city by western standards. I used to walk home from the office (roughly a mile and a half) when the weather was good, took metro and walked in bad weather. Bars and restaurants were all over the place, and it wasn't unusual I would walk by a store with something nice in the window and decide to go inside to see if I wanted to buy (young dude with a lot of disposable income, that was nice).
Over time I got to create relationships with the owners of the stores I would visit more frequently, and it wasn't rare to meet coworkers randomly by getting a beer in a bar with a friend. We would join groups and my social circle would naturally change over time.
Fast forward to now: I go from home to work, then back. I never meet anyone I haven't made plans to meet. I buy everything online. I haven't made a new friend in 3 years, and the variability of my social circle is also very limited. I'm bored all the time, and I eat too much and watch too much tv because I have no idea what to do with some of my free time. It sucks, and I wish I could go back to that lifestyle because it was a lot more fun than anything I experienced in the US.