I'm not entirely sure it's fully an age divide. Definitely age-weighted, I can agree. Other than family that grew up in NYC, most of my family >50 thinks I'm crazy for taking my kids on public transit and can't understand why I'd like to live closer in the city with kids compared to living in the sticks on a large property and a 15 minute drive to the grocery store. But there's also a lot of conservative younger-ish (millennial and younger) people who also seem to have that same mindset of wanting to live further out of the city and don't care or are against things like transit and tax dollars spent on city parks and bike lanes.
That example of the family of four where a four bedroom house is just too cramped for their needs I gave elsewhere? They're barely 30. They're absolutely not alone in what they're looking for.
I think it's a large and growing cultural divide.
There is a growing class of predominantly progressive people who look to walkability scores and the variety of ethnic restaurants and music venues to evaluate the desirability of a place to live. And an older more conservative cohort who value what you describe.