Today, nobody is really being “forced” to live in either of those environments. Anybody who doesn’t want to own a car and wants to walk everywhere and hates sprawl can live in a city - as long as that city contains a home that fits their family and budget.

It’s not the fault of the suburb people that the people who control city governments, the city dwellers themselves, continually thwart the building of housing in cities that is both suitable for families in terms of things like bedroom count, and affordable (dictated almost entirely by the amount of supply, but sadly all of those in charge seem to have failed economics class so they don’t acknowledge that fact).

Also, re:crime

SF for one still has a lot more crime than the state average by all types of crime except murder, and has more crime than its surrounding suburbs. The murder stat is nice, but I still don’t like how much Rape has gone up since 2011 in these stats. Overall the line that crime is way down across the board is not proven by long-term trends. I’m sure it is for some cities, but not all.

https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-Californ...