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Certainly many people enjoy that type of life. The frustrating part is the one-size-fits-all zoning that has made it difficult to build anything but that type o

• kory 4y ago
  Existing residents don't want apartments because they block sunlight, they cause overcrowding, they don't fit with the neighborhood's style. Frankly, as well, renters & especially landlords don't tend to take care of property or invest in the community as much as owner occupiers do, because the incentives aren't there for either of them to do so. It's not the renter's property and they can be kicked / priced out of the neighborhood at any time, so why bother to invest in it? Any investment in making your space nice means the landlord can hike your rent. On the landlord side, they know they're going to find another tenant as long as the unit is habitable enough, so in comes the "landlord special". I know this isn't universally true by any means, but the incentive structure is there. In apartment buildings that are "transit-enabled", every apartment usually has 1 car, maybe 2, and those cars flood the local street, making quality of life worse for all existing residents. Those apartments are more likely to own cars as we look at places that are more car-centric. In suburbia, an apartment building usually comes with a huge parking lot for all the cars, which isn't great, but it's a little more palpable for people living in the area already.