[ceejayoz]

Each of the fallout issues you identify stem from atmospheric testing.

Again, we've known how to prevent fallout via underground tests and carefully constructed tunnel layouts for ~70 years now. No one of influence in the West is proposing a return to atmospheric testing.

[defrost]

Underground or overground the answer to the question you posed ( "Why would you test them near where someone lives?" ) is, from past experience, because we (for various values of 'we') just do.

Actual tests of real weapons (not simulations) underground collapse mountains (North Korea) and affect fault lines, sub surface water flows, etc - these things will likely affect some people in a 200 km radius - and places with no one in that vicinity are hard to come by - generally you move people off their islands, off their land, or simply don't care.

[saboot]

> or simply don't care

Bingo