I can imagine the sprawling suburbs would be really hard to live in, obvious benefits in lower cost housing and more green space but the isolation and need for

I can imagine the sprawling suburbs would be really hard to live in, obvious benefits in lower cost housing and more green space but the isolation and need for a car seems pretty terrible. I live in Barcelona and the majority of people live in flats/apartments, my apartment building is like a large family, mixture of retirees, families, young couples and mixed flats of people just out of university. Everyone knows each other and relies on each other, for our neighbours' 90th birthday almost the whole building (10 flats) took her cake and stayed and chatted and had fun. (My partner and myself are both foreigners here and we're still accepted into the culture and events like this. IMO it's really hard to overstate how crucial this sort of interaction and sense of belonging is in a large city. What intensifies this even more is in Barcelona the first floor of a lot of apartment buildings is where there are shops/bars/butchers/restaurants etc. For most of my food and leisure needs (including the gym for example) I don't need to go more than 400m, this also creates social situations where you bump into the same people and staff over and over creating a real village feel. Here's a great shot of Eixample, a district in Barcelona divided by distinctive grids that lends itself to these 'micro' village communities. http://lh4.ggpht.com/-I28z_xwspR0/UdgqfgPxzCI/AAAAAAAAqCY/MjnI5scVE8k/eixample-barcelona8%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800 http://lh4.ggpht.com/-I28z_xwspR0/UdgqfgPxzCI/AAAAAAAAqCY/Mj... Sorry that was quite the tangent to go off on!