Any apartment built in the last 10~15 years should not have those problems. Here is a rendering of an apartment in Gangnam, Seoul, one of the densest cities in

Any apartment built in the last 10~15 years should not have those problems. Here is a rendering of an apartment in Gangnam, Seoul, one of the densest cities in the world (about 2x of New York). http://ojsfile.ohmynews.com/STD_IMG_FILE/2016/0330/IE001941286_STD.jpg http://ojsfile.ohmynews.com/STD_IMG_FILE/2016/0330/IE0019412... As you can see, the apartments have parks and playgrounds surrounding it. The short building in the corner is a commercial building, usually with restaurants, cafes, markets, education classrooms, all within short walking distance. Number of elevators typically scale with the building height, the ones in the picture probably have 2~3 elevators, making the possibility that all are out of service unlikely. There's no real problem with street noise (I've lived on the 3rd floor) and with neighbors in typical circumstances (barring things like construction or moving day). Popular starter apartments are around 80m^2 2 bedroom apartments, moving up to 115m^2 3 bedrooms as families get bigger and more established. This might be a problem for you if you like large places to live while living in a city, but that is an anomaly in recent times, I believe, based on what I've seen of older buildings in New York and LA. These kinds of apartments are common even in the suburbs, where there is much less space constraint to need this kind of density, but the density makes everything much more convenient, attracting and being able to sustain more local businesses, which is why even in the suburbs you can have access to half a dozen coffee shops within walking distance.