US is one of the very few places in the world where most people live in their own house, even if it's in "hellish" suburbs. Outside of US, even in first world countries, most people live in flats. Also, majority of world population live in flat out third world countries, and for them, moving to a "boring" (safe, clean, reasonably well designed, consisting of polite/civilized people, having working, high-quality infrastructure etc. etc.) US suburb would be a huge improvement.

> Outside of US, even in first world countries, most people live in flats

That's where the overestimation comes in. You assume people are miserable and would rather live in a ridiculous house and have to take a car to go do anything.