I think it's more a matter of what you're used to. Cities seem crazy to people that don't live in them. Our main office is in the city and one of our satellite offices is in the burbs. Some of the people that work there live in more rural areas. Ask one of them to visit the downtown office and it's like you're asking them to travel through a war zone.

I grew up in a small town that didn't get it's first stop light until I was in high school. The "city" that I went to college in had a population of less than 50,000. Boston, San Francisco, or Minneapolis all seem like safer places to be on a bike because the drivers are used to a lot of pedestrians and cyclists. I've been to the first two cities several times and of course live in Minneapolis. Boston in particular looks like a hostile place to drive but easy to get around on foot or by bike.