Why are there so few children’s books set in the suburbs?

How come kids are totally disinterested in cars? Oh wait, they're not disinterested in cars. There's a popular series of movies called Cars, and kids' toys include endless variations of cars like remote controlled cars and collections of miniature cars. When playing, kids will happily make vroom vroom noises and simulate car jumps and stunts and crashes, but I have never seen children's play involving the scenario of walking to a restaurant instead of driving there.

On a more practical and aesthetic level, drawing cobblestone streets, cozy neighborhood stores, hand carved sandstone facade apartment buildings, etc is a lot more glamourous than drawing tract suburban housing, so I can see the appeal of it aesthetically. Also from what I've read about some of these authors, they were city people as well, so they just drew what they knew. The migration of the middle class to the suburbs didn't happen until many of these authors were well retired, so if kids are reading the more classic books, they'll see a bit more city life than usual and almost exclusively NYC where so many budding creatives had access to NYC's incredible publishing industry.

Lastly, kids can't drive. So if you want a kid having an adventure where he meets various storekeeps, neighbors out running errands, friends, pet stores, schools, etc then a walkable city makes the most sense. Walkable areas are just more communal and neighborly than suburban life as well. Its more realistic if a kid goes on an adventure in a city than in the suburbs were the only practical way around is being driven around. Bikes, less so, when the nearest store is 5+ miles away and there's no bike lanes. I also imagine parents are more comfortable with books not encouraging little kids to ride bikes in the street. As a parent, my recollection is that a lot of the books exist in a weird nebulous middle ground unless they outright take place in NYC or London or Paris for narrative reasons. Kids can walk through a urban downtown area with stores and neighbors but also end up in big suburban houses on big suburban streets in the same book and without taking a bus or a cab between either. So its probably hard to really divide this into city vs suburban if we want to be fair about it. Authors will do whatever fits their narrative. The walkable city is appealing but so is the big home, so why not have both?

These couple of chapters every book, where Harry lies low and gets abused at Privet Drive, are tales of suburban doldrum and wasted life. Vernon lives for the capitalist dream of fancy cars and vacations, Petunia lives on gossip and spying on the neighbors, Dudley lives for food, bullying, and quick thrills. All the Dursleys are about conformism and consumerism, sign-posts for the suburban life.

By being "neglected" of these things, Dumbledore says Harry has "escaped the appalling damage" done to Dudley (Book 6, Chapter 3). Harry is much more comfortable at the "rural" Hogwarts Castle, though admittedly that's got hundreds of friends, jinxes for any craving, mad drug potions, and who knows what else. It's really not a fair comparison, 9/10 would prefer Hogwarts' hybrid urban/rural feel.

Also, side note, my HN name is a combination of HP + Windows/Linux humor. I have no idea if many people got that over the years.