Just look at the photos of these people. Doesn't look like they are too unhappy. As to the "richness of local ecosystem", it does do a lot for people. Consider this another article from the same newspaper, took me only a few seconds to find it, on the frontpage:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/the-soaring-cost-of-a-s...

And compare the photo of that girl with photos of the children from the original commment article.