Pretty much. Central AC is the default in regions of the US where you really need AC (which is most of the south and west, places that people didn’t really sett

Pretty much. Central AC is the default in regions of the US where you really need AC (which is most of the south and west, places that people didn’t really settle in large numbers until post WWII - among other reasons, because AC hadn’t been invented and the climate there is oppressive without it). In the northeast where buildings are generally the oldest in the country, window units are common - especially in rental units, because the tenant typically provides the AC themselves. One less thing for the landlord to maintain. The northwest, for the most part, doesn’t use AC much with their climate. Many homes don’t have AC at all. Mini-splits are becoming more and more common in big cities here now, but only if you’re lucky enough to own a place and you don’t have landmarked facade problems. I’d love to use one instead of my window units, but I rent a street-facing apartment in a landmarked building. Even if I could get my landlord to approve me paying for a mini-split to be installed, I couldn’t put anything outside. The commercial tenants in my building have mini-splits, but they have access to a side of the building which doesn’t front onto the public street, so no landmark concerns. (The fact that many landmarked facades have a random collection of window ACs hanging off the front seems much uglier to me than a bunch of professionally-installed identical mini-splits compressors would be, but, c'est la vie...)