There are two ways to look at the COVID-19 case numbers. One is more useful than the other. In any given area, there are:
a) How many cases
b) How many cases "per capita" or per person. It's just simple math: number of cases divided by number of people.
Of those, (b) is more useful, because it has to do with the pure level of risk - what the chances of infection are, mathematically.
There are more cases per person (or per 1000 people, or per 100,000 people, or whatever division you want to make) in small towns than in large cities. Yes, in a city the the raw numbers are higher where there are more people concentrated. But the per-capita numbers are better in a city.
In other words, if you live in a small town, you're more likely to be infected than if you live in a city. And the medical facilities are better, so if you DO get sick, you're more likely to get quality treatment and survive the experience. (This is all explained very well in the article I linked above. Please read it.)
In case this seems like a pointless difference, consider that many people have been saying that you're more likely to get struck by lightning than die from COVID. Okay, so they're using the "per capita" argument to make that point. To believe that anything is "more likely", one is getting into the realm of statistical analysis. Once you're talking about statistics, which we should be, using the pure numbers falls away as less useful.
So living in a city you may be surrounded by more cases but your net risk is lower.
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