Whether they enjoy it or not, I don't think many people have had an actual real choice about whether or not to live in suburbia.

For one thing in most North American cities it is the default and inescapable urban planning norm. There's no alternative. If someone cloned a dense and walkable European town nearby I'd choose to live there, but most towns around me are the same generic strip mall suburbs.

There are a handful of North American cities with vibrant residential cores or inner neighbourhoods that one could choose to live in, but ultimately for most it's not sustainable. In cities such as SF and Vancouver, attainable housing is in the multi-unit condo form which is not often suitable for growing families. What ground oriented housing exists is for multi-millionaires. Inevitably if one chooses to have a family the suburb is a forced choice.

Many of suburbia's problems do not originate from the free market or individual choices. Many come from top-down mandates. For example, until recently, all the state and federal road design guidelines were completely about 'Level of Service' (read: how fast cars move), and thus car throughput was optimized over safety, or the use of streets by other modes of transportation.