[jsinai]

I've never been to Boston but the description you give sounds a lot like London to me. Within the M25 (inner ring), London is mostly 2-3 story terraced houses with a few apartment buildings (don't think they go bigger than 8 stories) and taller social housing buildings. It's mostly dense but also plenty of green space and each neighbourhood feels mostly like a village within a city: ie a local high street, parks, schools, halls, religious centres etc within 15-30min walking distance. Of course it's not perfect and pre-pandemic the Tube was insane, but I'll take it over living in a car-reliant suburb any day.