Some things I’ve observed about families I know who seem to have suburban life figured out:

- regular (meaning periodic) physical activity is essential, for the adults and kids. Sports leagues, gym classes, whatever. If you’re not into sportsy physical activity, you need a physical hobby like woodworking, gardening, or literally anything to get your blood flowing

- your weekly schedule looks totally different as the seasons change. Skiing in winter, hiking and camping in the fall, beach vacationing in the summer, etc

- regular domestic vacations to escape the boredom, and to make you long for home.

- regular home improvement, to make your life in your house 1% better every month

- regular visits with nearby close friends and family. At least one visit to a close relation every two weeks. Non negotiable, and ideally tied to holidays

- overdo your holidays. Birthdays are huge, winter holiday (Christmas etc) is huge. Thanksgiving is huge. It has nothing to do with the meaning of the holiday and everything to do with getting people together.

These kinds of things are less achievable in the city because you have less money, less space, less autonomy. Just my observations from happy suburban families, I’m curious to see others’ notes.

What you've described sounds pretty suffocating to a kid. Growing up in the city my parents didn't have to force me to do a bunch of mundane bullshit, there was so much to do I was able to find cool stuff on my own.

I mean yeah, if you force your kids to do this stuff they’re going to hate it? I think you might be discounting the fact that many kids love to do these kinds of things, and also the role the kids play in deciding what to do.

The idea is to expose your kids to a wide range of activities, and support them doubling down on an evolving handful of them. Avoid setting super specific constraints (you must play a team sport), and instead try setting goals (find a physical activity you enjoy and find motivating). From my perspective, parenting is about exposing children to their options, and making some choice recommendations where you have experience.

Parents can do that anywhere, and fail to do that anywhere. I do agree that if your parents aren’t doing a good job of that in a walkable city, kids are more likely to discover those options on their own.

I do all of these things living in a city

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that they couldn't be done in a city. Depending on the city, you might even have better access to these activities (cooking classes, culture tours, etc.). However, these activities are invariably more expensive in urban environments, because you're competing with a higher volume of people for a small amount of space. And, where there are usually cheaper alternatives in the suburbs, there are typically no alternatives in the city.

For example, imagine that your kid wants to pursue rock climbing or small boat sailing, and your family lives in NYC. Or, you want to have a holiday gathering of 20+ people. The options exist but they're exorbitantly expensive.

For what it's worth plenty of kids get into rock climbing in nyc. There is a relatively high density of high quality gyms and nyc is 2 hours from one of the best climbing destinations in the country (in my admittedly biased opinion).

I was able to start a sailing team at my city high school because the park district gave us free boat and coaching time. They also had extremely cheap classes that anyone can take.

One thing that will keep me from living in the city for the rest of my life is how much I enjoy having private outdoor space. Being outside by myself is one of my favorite feelings in the world.