I moved to Utah and a lot of towns cities straddle mountains like this where the town is in the valley next to the mountains. It's very cool, but Id take forests over a view. I find being surrounded by woods much more comforting than high desert with a view but I guess that just depends on where you grew up.
Santiago is a cool town. I’ve been twice and I would definitely recommend a visit. It kind of answers the question, “what would Mexico City be like if it were in a developed, first-world country?”
Nature is beautiful. Majestic mountain ranges. Sharp pavement roads. Concrete everywhere. The tiniest touch of green regulated to little parks. Not another animal in sight except for pigeons finding trash in vacant parking lots. Sometimes I like to sit on a porch and really take in all the air, noise, and light pollution. Ah
Yeah I can't help but feel so frustrated seeing people develop places like this. In order to support wildlife they need valleys as well as mountains. You can't just build on every strip of usable land because a lot of animals need to graze and nest there too.
Then you should do some reading. Latin America is the most urban region in the world.
We have small pockets with high density like Santiago. It has 1/3 of the population of NYC but 150% of the population density. And NYC is by far the densest US city.
The result of this is wide swaths of nature, I grew up used to seeing no buildings or anything else man made all the way to the horizon. When approaching my hometown we would first see the city glow, because you get actual darkness out in the country. In the US' lower 48 only part of Oregon and Nevada get close to that.
Of course now US companies are once again trying to destroy our land with careless mining.