Quads do no harm, bit less co2 than a car, bit more exposure to the elements. Buying two vehicles is considerably less eco. More noisy than electric but better range and more fun. If you can't appreciate other people having fun, of course, it's lose, lose.

It is fun until you live next to a trail that becomes a quad highway in the weekend. I used to and I was really looking forward to the electric quad revolution. That would leave only the dust for us to suffer which, somehow is less distressing than the noise. I get the point of loud engines being fun in a teenager kind of way but they are so un-fun to everybody else that we should strive to look for and provide some other fun things to replace it.

I think you missed OP's reference to "urban areas". People who blast though densely populated neighborhoods on quads (usually "sport" models with obnoxious exhausts) generally have no regard for anyone around them. This is a very different scene compared to someone riding in the woods on one.

They're scarcely more tolerable in the woods.

"people having fun" on quads have no place in the city, same with scooters with aftermarket exhausts. Especially when they go as fast as they can at 3am.