Cities can be great places if the buildings and the design are friendly, just as small groups can be hostile and wilderness unforgiving. Architecture, like any form of art elicits an emotional response in people. Some of us might feel it more than others but the response is clearly there.
Taking this to extremes, as it’s easy to love a pretty building, the Brutalist work on London’s South Bank which even being pig-ugly is (was, anyway) a much-loved building. Other Brutalist monstrosities, not so much.
I think most of this comes from the greater community interaction between building and local resident. Skaters found new uses for parts of South Bank and are (were?) encouraged rather than reviled and moved on. Providing a place for them also gives them a sense of ownership and belonging, even custodianship.
Architecture needs to consider it’s place within the greater community and the strategies it employs against people, from spiked railings to studded pavers send a message to that community about their worth.
It’s insidious stuff, too. The shit’s everywhere. But once you know you are being manipulated to behave in a certain way, you can try to compensate for that.
I’m a product of my environment and would be deeply unhappy away from a comfy sofa and a reliable web-pipe. OTOH, people were living here for 50,000 years and never needed either. In my utopia, there’s more than enough room for both. 
