[wongarsu]

Smaller cities with about 40k-200k inhabitants can also be a nice sweet spot: big enough to have a decent number of events and hobby opportunities, small enough that you have low-traffic sidestreets within walking distance of the city center, and nature is still very much in reach

Assuming a European city layout where a city center exists and the 200k inhabitants aren't all spread out into suburban sprawl. Suburbia quickly kills the idea of walking and biking distances

[Cthulhu_]

I live in suburbia in a sprawling European city of 200K inhabitants, and design can fix a lot of that. The neighbourhoods are designed like little towns themselves, each having stores, schools, day cares, sports / leisure activities, restaurants and other businesses of their own, as well as playgrounds and nature areas which are often used by local youths to build shelters and play in.

The old city center - museums, historical buildings, big library, cinema, theater etc - is a longer trek, but still doable in ~20 minutes cycling. Plus there's trains and buses.

TL;DR, suburban doesn't mean it should kill things being in reasonable distances. However, big caveat, it's all kind of built in a compact way; garden space is often limited (total ground is usually 2x the house itself, so 50m2 ground floor space + 50m2 garden), roads are narrow (but this is good because it's bike / pedestrian optimized, cars can't go fast), etc. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinex-location for a superficial description, or look at a map of Dutch suburbs or houses (https://www.funda.nl/) to see what it's like.