> more enjoyable living
> freedom to live in more humane settings
> nightmarish big cities
You appear to be arguing as if this was an axiom--cities are this way, and you struggle through it until you can leave. As if the goal is to make bank and leave the city. But this is the cycle, not the cause. It does not have to be this way, and in many places (many European cities, Japanese and Korean cities, and more) it isn't this way. Tokyo is huge, for example, and it is very much not "nightmarish". Nor London, or Paris. Certainly in all these places there are space tradeoffs, but that is very much different than the only reason to be there being to suffer through.
At least in part, cars cause American cities to be this way. Cars are too big for city streets; cars push people out of cities at night making for different concentrations of activity, and so on. This article is a decent enough jumping off point, top of mind because I read it literally today: https://thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/keep-on-trucking
I believe we can have liveable, walkable cities, and it has nothing to do with "spreading out business activity".