One difference with "younger" kids now is they're getting married later...but once you have kids the suburbs look completely different and it's been that way for as long as there have been suburbs.
Netherlands has the happiest kids in the world, where in Amsterdam a lot of kids would be growing up in an apartment. The flip side is, they get their freedom where they can go to places without needing their parents to drive them everywhere.
Furthermore, people also prefer the suburbs for raising a family because that’s where all the nice schools are built. For better or worse, inner city schools are avoided like the plague for parents with the means to buy a house in the suburbs.
My parents moved to the city when they had kids. Specifically to enable a better life for us. More access to friends, better schools, more independence, better extracurriculars, more family time because no commute, etc. It was pretty great.
Living in the city also made college affordable because we could just live at home and walk to school.
Unless you are talking about literal toddler, it is nit that awesome.