as soon as I was old enough to realise that a place existed with blue skies, oceans, sunsets, girls in grass skirts on tropical islands, rain, wind, snow, mountains, deserts, and a respectable quota of gravity.

Well of course, that's all you know so you would miss it. Something you would not know how to miss if you were born on the moon and never been to earth.

In short, the people who dream up these amazing space cities of the future don’t seem to have a clue about whether any sane, rational, intelligent being would actually want to live in them.

Sane, rational and intelligent beings don't want to live in garbage dumps either but they do. Would you live in the Arctic if you grew up in the desert? People follow resources, opportunity and power. They mass in social groups. If these things are available people will come.