That depends on one’s economic status and Sex.
As a woman, on the other hand, I would choose Sparta over Athens a million times. Less chance of being exposed at birth because my father just doesn’t happen to want to raise a girl. Same food as my brothers — including meat and wine, which are denied to Athenian girls. Lots of opportunity to run around and get exercise (unlike my Athenian sisters, confined to the dingy back rooms of a cramped and smokey house), an opportunity to go to school with the boys and learn the same things they do (instead of being kept completely illiterate or at best taught the absolute minimum to read and write without being encouraged to actually read philosophy, literature or learn mathematics), a chance to ride and drive chariots (unthinkable in Athens!), free from marriage until I’m 18 or 19 (rather than 11 or 12 in Athens), marrying a young man — probably not more than 3 or 4 years older than me (rather than a man three times my age as in Athens), marrying a man I actually know from school and festivals— oh and that’s another great thing about being a girl in Sparta, I can sing and dance at the festivals!