Are you kidding? It depends where you are in the suburbs I'm sure. However, in general because of the ease of transit with a car you have access to far more.
For example, in NYC I wouldn't have access to a soccer field, a place to go horse back ridding, a place to go off roading, fishing, a Macy's, an Steak house, McDonalds, a Red Lobster, etc. all within 10-15 minutes. All at the same time, having a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with a yard at $1500/month.
> suburbs have less things spread out over much more area
Again, it is spread out over a larger area, but the accessibility of those regions is much greater (i.e. far less traffic, 45+ mph speed limit, and cheaper fuel costs). If you want stuff within walking distance, or public transit it will not be as accessible and thus you'll have access to less.
Living in the Bay Area (even with a car) it'll take me 25 minutes to get to the Costco 4 miles from my apartment which costs me 5x what it would in the suburbs of say Chicago, Austin, or countless other locations.
I'm not kidding. I am saying there are tradeoffs between suburban living and urban living. You give up a yard in the city. It is more expensive for far less space. However…
- I have Fishing, a Steakhouse, McDonalds, several seafood places better than Red Lobster within a 10-15 minute walk in NYC. Up until a few years ago, had horseback riding as well.
- If you expand this to a 10-15 minute subway ride, the selection gets insane.
So, no, you do not get access to more things in the suburbs, not by a lot. But as you said - you are closer to outdoorsy activities, have a yard, pay less.
If you're comparing the accessibility and cost of chain stores in and out of cities I'm going to assert that you're missing a lot of what cities have to offer (museums, interesting restaurants, live music, parks with lots of people in them, etc...). Also some people truly enjoy not needing to get into a car to accomplish even the most basic task
Cost of living and accessibility to nature and open space are the big compromises though
There's interesting restaurants in the (Chicago) suburbs too. They might not be as gimmicky (no "say the secret password to get in" types), but you can find just about every cuisine and the food is usually just as good.
Museums are great, but they're something I only get the urge to see a couple of times per year.
Live music (and you should have said shows/theatre also) is definitely lacking, but if I want to see that, I can drive an hour to go downtown or take the train to see them. Even when I was super gung-ho about going to those, I didn't go to more than a show per month. And several of those were in the suburbs (Ravinia, Oddball Comedy Festival, Chicago Improv, etc).
And parks? Except for the beach at Lake Michigan, the suburbs has the city beat in parks by a huge margin. Tons of forest preserves and parks out here, plenty to explore.
There's a lot more smaller but still enjoyable things in the suburbs too, community theatre, smaller concerts, sports events that don't cost a minimum of $80 per ticket, and town festivals which I prefer to big city events because you can actually walk without being constantly smushed by everyone else (literally true in Taste of Chicago).
But yeah, those don't want to use cars need not apply. And granted, there will be people who want to see a show 2 or 3 times per week and visit a museum at lunch every other day, who would of course prefer living in a big city. But it's not for everyone.
I'll agree the suburbs have less (if any) museums, live music, and parks with people in them.
What I would argue, that if someone from the suburbs wants to visit/participate in city events it's relatively easy (although getting home drunk or something would be difficult).
That's more-or-less the clear trade. You can't walk home drunk or visit these places without figuring out transportation, which often is less enjoyable.
I would like to say, I used to visit Greek Town, neighborhood festivities, or the Art Institute in Chicago pretty regularly and it took about an hour to and from the city on the weekends (I lived about 30 miles away). Living in the city, it took roughly the same time if you lived 2-3 miles away, but didn't use a car (the benefit being less responsibility)... So honestly, I see little difference in the cultural aspects.
I think this is how most American's see this as well. The cities are for the young who want to party, the suburbs are for the more established families wanting to raise children/relax.
If the only difference was the travel time, a 10x improvement in travel times would give you access to 100x more things, because we live on a two-dimensional surface. The reduction in density cuts down on that, but it's not 100x less dense.
