I've lived in three large apartment blocs. None were decent sized family apartments overlooking a green shady courtyard. They were all cramped 2-bedroom units

I've lived in three large apartment blocs. None were decent sized family apartments overlooking a green shady courtyard. They were all cramped 2-bedroom units overlooking shopping malls, designed for people who didn't want to buy a house in the suburban sprawl around my Midwestern city. The courtyards were decrepit and unmaintained, the only nice green spaces had 'keep off the grass' signs. Obviously no one wants that, it worked as a college student and a newlywed but when we started a family I did, indeed, buy a house. But not because I actually wanted a house, because I wanted something other than the crappy apartments that were in my local market. My parents recently bought a condo - it's in a green, forested neighborhood in some quiet residential streets, they have a two-car garage, they have four bedrooms - theirs, spare upstairs, office, one downstairs for visiting grandkids, storage space downstairs, upstairs they have a living room, dining room, and large kitchen. Theirs is a duplex, a few of the units in the neighborhood are larger quad-unit townhomes. As relatively wealthy seniors, they were able to buy that outright. But nothing like that (except regular homes) is available to rent within several hundred miles, as far as I know. Nice apartments are just not a thing that we build, in part because culturally, "nice apartments" is an oxymoron.