The trend to ask for citations when logical reasoning could be easily applied, is a sort of modern disease. Citations can be proven wrong with time. Logic reasoning is the right stuff.

"Forests don't need people". They are firmly rooted here since Devonian age. We came much, much, later. This part is pretty obvious.

"People need forests". Well, maybe not all people. Some people live in the deserts and never see a forest. Some live of goats that graze shrubs, other can rely on their fine petroleum resources, a great substance that keeps alive all cities in the world, and is made of old fores... oh, wait.

You certainly could build a skyscrapper without wood, but not without steel beams. To made steel beams you need molten steel, and to be able to molt steel you need a big bonfire made of carbon that is another thing made with... forests

You still could have a not so modern, old style city. They are made of wood.

No forests? Say bye to the tires of your car (and mountain bike)

And many cities are built around water courses, that is often another forest subproduct...

There is also the not minor issue of the oxygen, of course.

¿Could people live without forests? Yes probably, but our long term survival would be much more fragile.