I was born in a city of almost 50,000 and grew up in a hamlet of slightly over 200 people not all that far from the city. I currently live just off a main state highway between the two largest local cities and am outside any incorporated village or city. The county population is slightly under 100,000.
One advantage and disadvantage of growing up in a small rural community is that it IS a community and everyone knows everyone else. There is nowhere to hide when you have done something the rest of the community may not appreciate, but if you need help, they will be there for you. It is like a bigger-scale version of Cheers - "Where everybody knows your name (and more)". We were bussed to high school, which affects the social life, so getting a first driver's license is a major event in life, as was getting a first hunting license. We were active outdoors all four seasons, something lacking everywhere now. Gender-neutral baseball, football, sledding and tobogganing were only parts of it.
Urban life puts you closer to the centers of activities, and to the problems of modern society. Drugs and the associated problems, including gun violence, are a real problem in the city where I was born, in large part due to the presence of two maximum security prisons, one on each side of the city. The inmates' "posses" have followed them here along with active drug gang members. The movie theaters that were downtown are gone and there is a multi-screen cinema at a mall out in the countryside, or in what was the countryside. There is a functional mass transit system that covers most of the county and connects to adjacent systems, too. There is a downtown development group that has been trying to improve the business climate there and has failed miserably. There has been attempt after attempt to make the downtown area that was once the business hub of the county come back to life. You need people in a city to restore it, not more green spaces. When you eliminate affordable housing and turn it to a tax-exempt use, someone has to cover that lost revenue. Then when industry is given incentives to move away from the city, you are also losing income, both tax and individual revenues. Cities need industry to survive so the residents will be able to find positions that will allow them to own property withing the city, not just more "Would you like fries with that?" jobs. Cities are sprawling, de-urbanization is what it is called. Re-urbanization is what will save them.
I did and would again raise my family outside a city. I want them to be able to feel safe outdoors after dark. I played in the streets under the streetlights and that is something no child should miss.
Again, I would prefer to stay rural after retirement. I like being able to look off the porch and see neighbors' homes as well as several hundred acres of wooded hillside. A famous trout stream is about a 10 minute walk away, so why should I give this up? I like being able to walk back in from a shooting competition carrying a couple of shotguns without having the neighbors panic. Actually, the next-door neighbor was probably there shooting too. I don't want to be somewhere conformance to Political Correctness is almost required.
Stress is in the make-up of the stressed. I can tolerate New York City for a few weeks at a time, but could not live there. Fresh Air children from there have been known to panic when they see just how big the outdoors really is. They can not imagine life without being surrounded by tall buildings. I can't imagine the opposite for me. I can go from city to my brother's horse farm in less than 5 minutes if the lights are against me. I think everyone should have a similar option.
I believe that Urban Renewal is much more a political process than economic. In the city where I was born, many older neighborhoods were taken over and torn down. If the complaint was the quality of the housing, then one would think that upgraded homes, affordable by the displaced, would have replaced what was there. That is wrong. Most of it went to a State facility, non-taxable again, with another major part turned into a low-income housing (apartment) complex. Another large portion of the acquired properties are still vacant after more than thirty years. These properties still belong to the Urban Renewal Agency, so are, of course, non-taxable. In my opinion, the main reason several of the targeted neighborhoods were taken and razed is political planning. Many of the neighborhoods were ethnic with life-long residents. People like this tend to vote and to vote as a bloc. That is bad, you people. You are not supposed to agree on things like how a city or county should be run. You should listen to the self-appointed experts. Separate the voters and you dilute their power, sort of inverse gerrymandering.
And that is enough for now.