I think it's highly dependent on your area. In my smaller town I never have traffic. I have plenty of restaurants and activities and more "parkland" and nature than a city dweller could dream.
City dwellers seem to think of smaller towns as some sort of dessert wasteland, but I can get to anything a city dweller can in the same amount of time. There's just as much stuff out here, we just also have enough room to live comfortably. The low property prices and crime are great too.
Well, are you in support of a suburb or a small town? A suburb is wildly distinct from a small town. Most would agree that a suburb solely exists to house people that work in a nearby city, whereas a small town is self-sufficient (in the sense any area can be "self-sufficient").
This is where the conversation tends to break down. What you would call a suburb, I would probably call part of the city. What I would call a suburb, you would probably call rural.
I do think hit the nail on the head with the self sufficiency. I have absolutely no need or desire to commute into the nearest big city (big it is fun for day trips every once in a while).
The area directly outside the urban core that contains only housing and bad traffic is definitely not somewhere I would want to live, although owning a proper house instead of renting an apartment is very important to some people.
> Also, many small towns have higher crime rates per capita than cities.
Per capita crime rates do not matter. What matters is the question "How likely am I to be the victim of a crime if I live in area X?".
Depending on the type of crime, you are around 4x as likely to be the victim of a violent crime if you live in a city[1].
Per capita rates is a statistical curiosity. Being 4x more likely to be shot is what people actually care about. When the population density is 10 - 100x different, a small difference in per capita rates is meaningless.
City dwellers seem to think of smaller towns as some sort of dessert wasteland, but I can get to anything a city dweller can in the same amount of time. There's just as much stuff out here, we just also have enough room to live comfortably. The low property prices and crime are great too.