“My understanding is that living out here in the exurbs of our solar system is one of the reasons we had sufficient time on earth to develop intelligent life.”
This ‘understanding’ was granted to you by whom? And how would they know - unless they’ve been to the center?
Besides it makes sense.
Even being out here in the hinterlands, Earth has experienced some spectacularly life changing events. The best guess is that the moon was created when the Earth was hit by a large planet. Several massive extinction events are most likely the result of meteor/asteroid collisions. We are told that a gamma ray burst would strip the Earth of its atmosphere. We are told there are rogue planets soaring through the galaxy that were ejected from their solar systems, etc.
These events would be experienced more often in parts of the solar system more densely populated with stars. It's just a matter of probability.