Ah, but he's talking about the cities, not the burbs.  We grew up in the city in a complex built specifically for Veterans of WWII.   They were low rise apartments, 4 or 6 families in each building, with large fenced backyards spanning several at a time on either side of the laneway.   There was a similar complex built in the West end of the city, but I don't think they had the fenced yards we had.    There were enough kids in the complex to have teams to play hockey or volleyball or whatever game we wanted to play.

When I was small, an older kid carefully built a rink at one end of a yard so he and his friends could play hockey at night.   Not only were the younger kids able to skate during the day, but he also helped us build an ice slide beside it, complete with steps!  And there were no bullies in our neighbourhood - because they weren't tolerated.   These were not highrises.  The population was small enough that everybody knew each other.  Which wasn't always a good thing.  HA!