None of the neighborhoods I mentioned are suburban. If you don't recognize them, it sort of tips your hand at not knwoing the city at all, as much as calling the entire city "Amazonville". Discovery park isn't known for views, there are other places in the city that are. Ballard is not some sprawling suburban neighborhood, its typically one of the most recomended places in the city to visit. You get there by walking the lakefront bike path from SLU (which is actually "Amazonville"). Capitol Hill is a 20 minute walk from downtown. Alki isn't walkable from downtown, but you can take the passenger ferry. I don't know where you got the idea of "sprawling suburbs".

You are allowed to personally like one city over the other. It just seems silly to base your opinion on living in one and a few days in another, and then argue when people point out that it seems like you haven't really done or gone to the places that make a place interesting.