Those problems listed in your 3rd paragraph would not be issues of concern at all.
Nobody wants to take the bus. It doesn't run 24x7. It doesn't go direct, door to door. At the beginning and end of the trip, nobody wants to walk 7 minutes in unpredictable weather while lugging a bunch of stuff. Nobody wants to endure a slow trip, stopping every couple blocks, with a couple bus changes that take a half hour each. Before you get your groceries home, either your ice cream melts or your hot chicken gets cold. You just wouldn't do that. You'd hop in your car, go a couple miles without any traffic, and use the free parking.
Heroin addicts aren't normally a problem in reasonable non-city areas. Yes, you could choose to live in the worst neighborhood, maybe renting for $200/month, but that isn't normal for a "software-engineering" person. More likely you'd be in a neighborhood where calling the cops about a suspicious person would get the cops there in a couple minutes, and/or you'd be in a place where burglars get shot at with full approval of the state legislature.
I actually want to take a bus, or walk. Taking the bus for groceries is insane, only someone living in suburbs could come up with that ;) You should be walking for groceries. Buses save a lot of time since you don't have to drive so you can read or even work; even in my location where buses are far away and there's no express bus nearby (so I make a transfer), for my commute in realistic, not over-the-top traffic the bus is only about 1.5-2.25x slower counting parking time in the free garage, so the net wasted time is actually higher by car; buses are way cheaper (same commute, $2.75 by bus, $5-6 by car before even counting tolls and with free parking); less bad for your health, esp combined with walking; much less stressful; you don't have to bother with parking that is often scarce in the areas you'd actually want to go; you can drink 3 beers and not worry about who will drive; if the weather is terrible like now in Seattle, buses mostly keep running even though most people cannot drive and Ubers are non-existent.
Mind you, that's all in the city where buses actually kinda suck. Where I'm from, subway runs 19 hours a day, and peak hour train interval are 50 seconds, up to 7 minutes at night. Many people still drive (it actually takes much longer at rush hour), well as I say, why stop the self-inflicted suffering, there are all kinds of kinky people :)
The way I see it, driving yourself is a menial job that makes about as much sense to do as pumping your own overflowed sewer with your own advanced plumbing gear. If you cannot pay someone else to do it (no plumbers or buses/ubers accessible), either you live really far in the mountains, or the place you live in is run by idiots.
Crime rates, except for the most benign property crime like car prowls and package theft, seem to be way higher in the LCOLs I looked at, ~4 years ago when we were deciding where to move to. I was actually surprised how much higher, although I don't remember the details. Anecdotally, someone I know lives in a LCOL in Texas and they got burglarized no problem in a gated burb that is way far out, you cannot get there in any way other than by car.
You must be very comfortable in crowds, without much concern for the fact that some other person could do something bad to you. Suburbia exists largely because other people disagree. These other people can not relax on a city bus.
Fixing your own sewer is something people do for privacy (strangers again, IN THE HOME), scheduling, and to take pride in doing something with real physical results. It's like cooking your own food, changing the oil in your car, walking your dog, washing your dog, teaching your kids to read, driving, and mowing your lawn. All these things can be paid for, but that takes variety out of life and reduces privacy.
Getting burglarized in Texas is pretty special. Somebody knew he wasn't home, or at least that he wasn't armed.
I shouldn't be walking for groceries. The HCOL/LCOL distinction sorts by family size, being both cause and effect. (you choose a place according to family size, and then the choice you made will influence your family size) I have 11 kids, so try to imagine hauling the groceries for 13 people.
Going by your price, it's $35.75 for us to take the bus.
As far as these preferences go, I think of myself as an outlier in the US, but with 11 kids and pride in fixing your own sewer and/or not wanting a plumber in your house for privacy reasons, you appear to be much more of an outlier in the opposite direction. Sure, in that case, you have to live in suburbs (or a rural setting). I know some people who want to live walking distance to long mountain running trails, that places even more severe restrictions on them.
For an average person though, preference for suburbs is usually just based on outdated preconceived notions and habit (scared on a city bus? buses in HCOL areas, esp. those going to major white collar employment areas e.g. Seattle to Redmond, have like 30% of the people on their laptops half the time; uncomfortable in crowds, in the US? most US cities have no crowds to speak of even in downtown core, and in any case most people are quite fine in a crowd at a football game or a concert).
Also, even with an extreme bias towards suburbs in the US ("the children!"), many people do prefer cities if you judge by the price per sqft.
Nobody wants to take the bus. It doesn't run 24x7. It doesn't go direct, door to door. At the beginning and end of the trip, nobody wants to walk 7 minutes in unpredictable weather while lugging a bunch of stuff. Nobody wants to endure a slow trip, stopping every couple blocks, with a couple bus changes that take a half hour each. Before you get your groceries home, either your ice cream melts or your hot chicken gets cold. You just wouldn't do that. You'd hop in your car, go a couple miles without any traffic, and use the free parking.
Heroin addicts aren't normally a problem in reasonable non-city areas. Yes, you could choose to live in the worst neighborhood, maybe renting for $200/month, but that isn't normal for a "software-engineering" person. More likely you'd be in a neighborhood where calling the cops about a suspicious person would get the cops there in a couple minutes, and/or you'd be in a place where burglars get shot at with full approval of the state legislature.