Right. Most people in "rural" places live in small towns. My wife went to high school in a rural Iowa town with 2,000 people. You can walk from the high school to anywhere in town in 30 minutes.
Then I moved to Mexico and they were on to something there: small towns have central plazas that are heavily used for social activities, young men and women can walk around meeting each other, and they build densely enough to where you can walk around the town.
So I envy anyone whose rural US upbringing is like your wife's. I didn't think we had that as an option anywhere in the US except for movies.
Also, a lot of the "rural" population in census data is actually living in outer suburbs and newer suburbs tend to be pretty unsafe for kids to walk/bike around