Our system is highly beneficial to the top quarter roughly.
The median of that group has gotten significantly richer over 20 or 50 years and is better off in the US than they would be anywhere else in terms of wealth and scale (scale as in how many of them can reach that level of wealth and have access to the kind of economic opportunities that the US presents). Europe has nothing remotely like it, outside of small population nations like Norway or Switzerland (and you need to reach the top 10% there to be comparable). Wealth isn't everything? Correct, of course; the US culture is rotting rapidly, and devolving into predictable tribalism, an unavoidable result of government policy choices over the prior many decades.
If you can get into the top quarter in the US, use that position for all its worth. If you can't, it's not going to be a great existence unless you live in a nice college town or the equivalent.
However, the middle class (and the near groupings below or above that) across most of the developed world are facing a severe smashing, which will result in recurring French-like riots and protests in the decades to come. Most of affluent Europe hasn't seen consequential economic growth in two decades or more at this point. It's destroying their welfare systems gradually, weakening their social safety nets and loading their systems up with debt, just as their demographics are breaking. The huge French riots prior to the pandemic were one of the first big warning shots of what's coming. Japan, as another example, has seen a minimum of 1/3 of its standard of living wiped out over the past 20 years, and there's a lot more damage to come; the US and EU are both suffering from variations of Japanification economically (high debt, low dynamism, aged demographics, persistently mediocre productivity growth, low GDP growth, low GDP per capita growth, falling or stagnant standards of living for decades, struggling to allocate enough resources to the welfare state to maintain social promises, and so on).
Or take Germany as an example. They've had a remarkable - supposedly remarkable - economic run for decades now. Riding on an artificially weak currency (for their economy) which they've used to build up a freakishly abnormal export juggernaut. And yet their median net wealth figure is mediocre, below that of the US; their workers are not benefitting as they should be. And at this point Germany has seen net zero per capita economic expansion for coming up on 30 years. How long can that situation continue before something breaks? Not much longer I'd wager.
While the US is seeing many of the same problems, it's absolutely correct that it's better to live in cities in other affluent nations, rather than in the US. US cities are horrific by and large, with few exceptions.