As was perhaps a natural consequence of existing in a world populated by monsters that often ranged from the size of the average vehicle to potentially buildings in scale, most of the global population wasn’t prone to living in places that would be hard to defend. The march of technology though did mean it was much safer to make settlements further into the wilds of the world, or in some cases the people of a certain group had the fortune to be situated in a locale that came with easy natural defenses.
But, the threat of magical beasts wasn’t ever forgotten, and even a simple farming town with acres of fields to maintain would no doubt be found within the borders of some region or another that would provide ease-of-defense, or in the case of massive cities like Clearharbor, would have a defensive wall constructed in order to keep more troublesome types from busting in unannounced and making a mess of things.