I would rather raise my kid(s) in a small town and not a big city. Maybe within a few hours drive of a big city to the occasional big/special event, museum visit, etc.
You can still do that in a smaller town too, and have actual wilderness - forests, etc to explore, build tree houses, forts, fishing, swimming, etc.
What makes the suburbs and small towns good isn't positive / a presence of pros, but negative / an absence of cons.
hard pass. cars are the reason everything sucks in N American urban planning