Different people have different expectations of their environment and those expectations are likely to change throughout their life, but blanket statements like "people need suburbs" is a bit much. Personally, I think they're the worse of all worlds. Suburbs combine the worse aspects of urban life and the worse aspects of rural life, then try to present themselves as some sort of idyllic compromise.
I'm going to make a claim that you'll probably think is absurd: there is far more in common between a small town and a big city than there is between a small town and the suburbs. A small town and a big city are places where people live. People know each other because they see each other on the street as they go to work or get groceries. They meet each other in local businesses or community centres. Suburbs are simply places where people have their homes. Everything else takes place elsewhere. People are unlikely to know someone a block or two over, unless their kids go to the same school, simply because they never encounter each other on the streets and their lives are completely divergent outside of their (so called) community.
I'm going to make a claim that you'll probably think is absurd: there is far more in common between a small town and a big city than there is between a small town and the suburbs. A small town and a big city are places where people live. People know each other because they see each other on the street as they go to work or get groceries. They meet each other in local businesses or community centres. Suburbs are simply places where people have their homes. Everything else takes place elsewhere. People are unlikely to know someone a block or two over, unless their kids go to the same school, simply because they never encounter each other on the streets and their lives are completely divergent outside of their (so called) community.