Nobody is forcing people back into cities, but I'll argue that a city, crime and all, has more soul than a cookie-cutter suburban subdivision with big box stores and an Olive Garden on the edge of the mall parking lot as the finest dining option around.
People are choosing to live in cities for reasons that make sense to them, not because they're being rounded up and run into the ghetto in cattle cars. I've lived in cities, I've lived in suburbs, I've lived in small towns and I've lived in the country. All have their good points and bad points, and we all make trade-offs when we choose where to live. How we weight those factors and how we make those decisions are individual choices.
It is not the suburbs that the social engineers are trying to empty, it is the rural areas, like where I live.
Cities are cold and unsafe, even the cities that have been gentrified. I remember walking down the sidewalk in downtown Seattle, when my husband grabbed me by the arm and pulled me onto the curb because they were doing a needle exchange right on the sidewalk in the busy downtown shopping area. I have had homeless guys sit down with me at Starbucks and am constantly harangued by the homeless for money every time I go to Seattle. I’ve seen a purse snatcher run off with a woman’s purse. I’ve seen scam artists promising huge returns on investments if they will only lend them money for a short while and I often see the wide-eyed stare of the PETA freaks trying to solicit support from passers-by. Who needs it? I prefer my solitude.
In LA, I had to step over a dead man on the sidewalk, slumped against a doorstop, with flies going in and out of his mouth. People just walked around him. I went in search of police officer, and when I came back, I had a parking ticket and the guy was still there. That is soulless.