The stations would need to be rather large, but that's just an engineering and motivation problem. But with a little extra shielding (lot's of water in the hull - could be obtained from asteroids) they'd be very useful as living space (especially after climate change ravages our home planet).
They'd also be much better staging places for solar system exploration and have an advantage in trade (refueling, low energy requirement to get anywhere, excellent target for asteroid refinement without having to bring stuff into a gravity well and back up).
Not having to fight the atmosphere for solar energy is also a plus.
But humanity still clings to traditional gravity wells like the images in the OP show. Old Italian land-house style dwellings in an orbital ring station..