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Different strokes for different folks. I’m a very happy single family home dweller. Living in a dense city feels claustrophobic.

capableweb 3y ago
Indeed :) Living too far away from any metropolitan area makes me feel claustrophobic as there is usually very little social groups active in my favorite hobbies/niches unless near a city.
- jansan 3y ago
  You really should look up the meaning of "claustrophobia"
  - capableweb 3y ago
    Maybe isolated is a better word then, for me they feel just about the same.
    - galangalalgol 3y ago
      It is two sides of the same coin I think. People are horrible and wonderful, and museums and forests are both wonderful. If we invent spatial warps I want a front door in one of these big Galician high rises and a back door in a tiny house somewhere forested mountains meet the sea. I'm up for learning Galego. Edit: I am aware green spain has places where forested mountains meet the sea, so I guess it could be a really short spatial warp, but there is something about standing somewhere you can sing as loud as you can, and knowing no one could hear you but the squirrels.
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    As do the original commenter. Agoraphobia may be a better word in both cases.
  - marssaxman 3y ago
    Claustrophobia feels like the right word to me; suburban life feels like being trapped in whichever tiny little patch of land is yours, hemmed in on all sides by not-yours, not-welcome, keep-out places belonging to other people. Such places feel especially confining to those who cannot drive.
- anonzzzies 3y ago
  Indeed. I'm very happy I can live in a large house with a lot of land for next to nothing. Please all stay in cities, but don't complain about the housing crisis and housing prices; it's quite obvious that if you want to all live together prices will rise.
bitwize 3y ago
The Anglosphere is more car dependent and more prone to NIMBY policies and housing shortages than continental Europe, because continental Europeans are more comfortable with density. Density is the solution to many land management problems.
- galangalalgol 3y ago
  I would love to read more on that. It would also be interesting to look at the places in former english colonies that do have higher residential buildings to see if continental immigration there might have been involved. It sounds like spain had a brief love affair with sprawl as well. Perhaps some of it is just that when the population boom arrived for the US sprawl was in style and we had the room?
- dotcoma 3y ago
  Yes, but they got many things right in the Netherlands even with an incredibly low percentage of people living in flats. Bikes, not cars, please.
  - VancouverMan 3y ago
    The feasibility of widespread bike usage doesn't just depend on density. It depends a lot on a region's weather, too. Amsterdam, for example, happens to have weather that's relatively compatible with biking, all throughout the year. On the other hand, for four to six months of the year, most areas of Canada, and even a good portion of the US, definitely don't. While a very small handful of people can handle biking when it's consistently -10 °C (14 °F) or colder out, possibly through 10 cm (4") or more of uncleared snow/slush, and possibly on ice, the vast majority of people can't and won't. The summer isn't necessarily any better. The cities in southern Ontario, for example, where many Canadians live, can become surprisingly hot and humid for weeks at a time, and biking isn't pleasant then. Given those conditions, people will definitely try to drive instead of biking.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      Even in perfect conditions there's a lot of reasons not to bike. Distances are more difficult, you can't bring someone with you, your carrying capacity is much smaller for shopping trips. It also just plain takes longer to get anywhere and people just don't like spending more time than they have to on errands.
jeffbee 3y ago
Everyone on the receiving end of a tacit subsidy is pretty happy about it.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  not sure what this means
  - kdmccormick 3y ago
    It means that when you look at government revenue vs expenditure per square mile, urban dwellers are massively subsidizing surburbanites. It's mainly because maintainence of roads, parking, and utilities for a spread-out surburbia is vastly less efficient than it is for a tightly packed city.
    - whalesalad 3y ago
      We all pay taxes, I don't see an issue. I pay significantly more taxes than people who are living in more affordable/dense housing in the city - both in property taxes as well as the fact that I earn a higher income. I am subsidizing lots of other people in my community.
      - jeffbee 3y ago
        There are loads of people who believe this but who are mistaken. Typically they are underestimating the value of services delivered to them for free at the point of use. We don't know your individual situation of course, but it's true in the aggregate.
        whalesalad 3y ago
        Sounds like a problem with the system, and not a problem that should be projected/blamed on individuals. No one likes paying taxes, but I believe most people are willing to contribute to the common good when they know that it is actually going towards the common good. I feel this way at least and have a decent sense based on anecdotal conversations that a lot of others do too. I am willing to pay more taxes if I know that it is going to directly help people around me, and raise the quality of my entire community. Unfortunately that is often not the case.
bigbacaloa 3y ago
Living in a single family home may be nice, but it's resource inefficient to the point of wasteful. Among the resources wasted are energetic and spatial resources. There is a reason per capita energy consumption in the US dwarfs that in other countries. The society bears a huge cost for the individual decision to live alone.
rsynnott 3y ago
Yes, takes all sorts, and probably a lot of it comes down to what you're used to. Paradoxically I find being down the country claustrophobic; in truly rural areas (and in places with particularly poor provision for pedestrians, like most of the US, this often manifests even in outer suburbs) you can't really get anywhere without driving, and you may not be able to leave your house at all without driving (probably no footpath, narrow unsafe road). I'd never consider living somewhere where I couldn't, at minimum, walk to supermarkets, bars, restaurants, parks, etc.
- nerdbert 3y ago
  Same here. If I can't walk to things I want to do and people I want to see, I feel like a prisoner.
stetrain 3y ago
More dense construction in urban areas will probably help make single family homes affordable for those who want them. I imagine people who own single family homes in nice suburbs are pretty happy about it, especially if they bought it when prices were half of what they are currently and are paying <3% interest.
- Axsuul 3y ago
  > More dense construction in urban areas will probably help make single family homes affordable for those who want them. Probably the opposite effect for SFHs in the urban areas. People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family, and those are gradually being replaced by these multi-family dwellings, so the supply of them is actually going down.
  - stetrain 3y ago
    Well yes. There is more demand for housing in urban areas than there is room for detached single family homes. Either prices will continue to increase beyond the affordability of those raising families, or density can increase. That's why they are urban areas, not suburban or rural. > People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family I also think this is kind of a US-centric experience, or at least doesn't take pricing and location into account. I suppose most people would prefer a single family home in central Manhattan but that doesn't exist, and if it did it would be unaffordable. Now a single family detached home with a convenient transit commute into the city would be great. The US isn't great at building those either.
  - ska 3y ago
    > People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family, I don't think it's that simple. I mean, everyone would love a big house on a big yard that is close to everything, but approximately nobody gets to do that. In reality there are always tradeoffs, and the the tradeoffs build in incentives - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, that people respond to. In a lot of the US those incentives have skewed pretty hard recently to exurban singles but that's not universal. These sorts of things are hugely affected by infrastructure planning and subsidies, etc. At the end of the day people choose between the options they have, not the ones they wish they had.
matsemann 3y ago
I feel being trapped in a suburb more claustrophobic. Can't walk anywhere, entirely car dependant for even the smallest things.
stronglikedan 3y ago
Same. I grew up in a house, but I've lived in apartments and buildings in the city. When it came time to buy, I bought a house. I can't ever see myself not living in a house ever again.
mupuff1234 3y ago
Have you ever lived in a city? There's also a pretty big variance between a European city for example which usually doesn't have very tall high rises, and living in midtown Manhattan.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  Yep - SF and Honolulu were frustrating places to live. Waiting for elevators. Shared laundry spaces. No privacy. Noisy neighbors. Noisy parking garages. Noisy street traffic. I spent 6 months in Sweden and have traveled to a handful of other European countries. The quiet suburban/rural life is for me. After growing up in LA, bouncing around SF, DC and HNL I have settled in Michigan and really enjoy it here. Plenty of room, not very congested, progressive policies. Life is good (albeit sometimes very cold)
j_heffe 3y ago
Single family homes are fine. The problem in the U.S. is that it's illegal to build anything _but_ single family homes in the majority of suburbs. Wouldn't it be better if people had access to a walkable grocery store, coffee shop or park? Or if kids could safely walk or bike to school? Many communities have absolutely zero options and are completely reliant on cars in order to go about daily life.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Most suburbs also have higher density zones where you can have apartments. The single family homes get the majority of the land space, but there are also apartments and townhouses which are more dense.
  - munk-a 3y ago
    Those high density zones suffer economically by being forced to subsidized the extensive infrastructure for single family homes - and in the US it's quite difficult to find an area to inhabit that actually prioritizes pedestrians over cars.
  - mikebenfield 3y ago
    There are sometimes apartments spotted around in a suburby area, but due to the nature of US suburbs they don't really get many of the advantages density should bring - everything you might want to go to is still at least a moderate car ride away, there's no people out and about because there's no reason for them to be there, etc. Any time you leave your apartment you go straight to the parking lot and get in your car. It's pathetic really.
    - jjav 3y ago
      > due to the nature of US suburbs The US is a big place. Lots of different suburbs. > everything you might want to go to is still at least a moderate car ride away, there's no people out and about because there's no reason for them to be there Can you point at specific places like this? Google street view links? Every suburb I've lived in the US I can walk to just about everything I need, kids walk to playground and parks, friends houses, etc. I'm curious to see these suburbs where one can't walk anywhere.
SkeuomorphicBee 3y ago
Different strokes indeed. As a very happy apartment/flat/condo dweller, the suburban home life feels to me like being trapped in a tiny deserted island (the cartoon ones, with a single coconut tree), just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness, with nowhere to go within reach. When in the suburbs I end up just staying in the couch all the time, because I can't be bothered to face the big journey necessary to go places, feels very isolating.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  > just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness Truthfully this is the dream.
- jjav 3y ago
  > As a very happy apartment/flat/condo dweller, the suburban home life feels to me like being trapped in a tiny deserted island (the cartoon ones, with a single coconut tree), just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness, with nowhere to go within reach. When in the suburbs I end up just staying in the couch all the time, because I can't be bothered to face the big journey necessary to go places, feels very isolating. This sounds like a cartoon version of suburbs! Can you point at actual suburbs (google map links) where you might be surrounded by endless nothingness and can't walk anywhere? I've lived most of my life in suburbs in the US and have never experienced this. The only time I lived in a place I couldn't walk to any destination was when I lived in a quite rural area. But that was rural, not suburban.
  - Barrin92 3y ago
    > Can you point at actual suburbs Not the OP but when I lived in the US as an exchange student I lived in a suburb that looked exactly like the one in this video[1], which seems to be a fairly typical middle class neighborhood. Like him I had the same experience of barely being able to walk anywhere, given how little space there even is for pedestrians. [1]https://youtu.be/39QOw4IL0Gk?t=509 https://youtu.be/39QOw4IL0Gk?t=509
    - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
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capableweb 3y ago

Indeed :) Living too far away from any metropolitan area makes me feel claustrophobic as there is usually very little social groups active in my favorite hobbies/niches unless near a city.

jansan 3y ago
You really should look up the meaning of "claustrophobia"
- capableweb 3y ago
  Maybe isolated is a better word then, for me they feel just about the same.
  - galangalalgol 3y ago
    It is two sides of the same coin I think. People are horrible and wonderful, and museums and forests are both wonderful. If we invent spatial warps I want a front door in one of these big Galician high rises and a back door in a tiny house somewhere forested mountains meet the sea. I'm up for learning Galego. Edit: I am aware green spain has places where forested mountains meet the sea, so I guess it could be a really short spatial warp, but there is something about standing somewhere you can sing as loud as you can, and knowing no one could hear you but the squirrels.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  As do the original commenter. Agoraphobia may be a better word in both cases.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  Claustrophobia feels like the right word to me; suburban life feels like being trapped in whichever tiny little patch of land is yours, hemmed in on all sides by not-yours, not-welcome, keep-out places belonging to other people. Such places feel especially confining to those who cannot drive.
anonzzzies 3y ago
Indeed. I'm very happy I can live in a large house with a lot of land for next to nothing. Please all stay in cities, but don't complain about the housing crisis and housing prices; it's quite obvious that if you want to all live together prices will rise.

bitwize 3y ago

The Anglosphere is more car dependent and more prone to NIMBY policies and housing shortages than continental Europe, because continental Europeans are more comfortable with density. Density is the solution to many land management problems.

galangalalgol 3y ago
I would love to read more on that. It would also be interesting to look at the places in former english colonies that do have higher residential buildings to see if continental immigration there might have been involved. It sounds like spain had a brief love affair with sprawl as well. Perhaps some of it is just that when the population boom arrived for the US sprawl was in style and we had the room?
dotcoma 3y ago
Yes, but they got many things right in the Netherlands even with an incredibly low percentage of people living in flats. Bikes, not cars, please.
- VancouverMan 3y ago
  The feasibility of widespread bike usage doesn't just depend on density. It depends a lot on a region's weather, too. Amsterdam, for example, happens to have weather that's relatively compatible with biking, all throughout the year. On the other hand, for four to six months of the year, most areas of Canada, and even a good portion of the US, definitely don't. While a very small handful of people can handle biking when it's consistently -10 °C (14 °F) or colder out, possibly through 10 cm (4") or more of uncleared snow/slush, and possibly on ice, the vast majority of people can't and won't. The summer isn't necessarily any better. The cities in southern Ontario, for example, where many Canadians live, can become surprisingly hot and humid for weeks at a time, and biking isn't pleasant then. Given those conditions, people will definitely try to drive instead of biking.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    Even in perfect conditions there's a lot of reasons not to bike. Distances are more difficult, you can't bring someone with you, your carrying capacity is much smaller for shopping trips. It also just plain takes longer to get anywhere and people just don't like spending more time than they have to on errands.

jeffbee 3y ago

Everyone on the receiving end of a tacit subsidy is pretty happy about it.

whalesalad 3y ago
not sure what this means
- kdmccormick 3y ago
  It means that when you look at government revenue vs expenditure per square mile, urban dwellers are massively subsidizing surburbanites. It's mainly because maintainence of roads, parking, and utilities for a spread-out surburbia is vastly less efficient than it is for a tightly packed city.
  - whalesalad 3y ago
    We all pay taxes, I don't see an issue. I pay significantly more taxes than people who are living in more affordable/dense housing in the city - both in property taxes as well as the fact that I earn a higher income. I am subsidizing lots of other people in my community.
    - jeffbee 3y ago
      There are loads of people who believe this but who are mistaken. Typically they are underestimating the value of services delivered to them for free at the point of use. We don't know your individual situation of course, but it's true in the aggregate.
      - whalesalad 3y ago
        Sounds like a problem with the system, and not a problem that should be projected/blamed on individuals. No one likes paying taxes, but I believe most people are willing to contribute to the common good when they know that it is actually going towards the common good. I feel this way at least and have a decent sense based on anecdotal conversations that a lot of others do too. I am willing to pay more taxes if I know that it is going to directly help people around me, and raise the quality of my entire community. Unfortunately that is often not the case.

bigbacaloa 3y ago

Living in a single family home may be nice, but it's resource inefficient to the point of wasteful. Among the resources wasted are energetic and spatial resources. There is a reason per capita energy consumption in the US dwarfs that in other countries. The society bears a huge cost for the individual decision to live alone.

rsynnott 3y ago

Yes, takes all sorts, and probably a lot of it comes down to what you're used to. Paradoxically I find being down the country claustrophobic; in truly rural areas (and in places with particularly poor provision for pedestrians, like most of the US, this often manifests even in outer suburbs) you can't really get anywhere without driving, and you may not be able to leave your house at all without driving (probably no footpath, narrow unsafe road). I'd never consider living somewhere where I couldn't, at minimum, walk to supermarkets, bars, restaurants, parks, etc.

nerdbert 3y ago
Same here. If I can't walk to things I want to do and people I want to see, I feel like a prisoner.

stetrain 3y ago

More dense construction in urban areas will probably help make single family homes affordable for those who want them. I imagine people who own single family homes in nice suburbs are pretty happy about it, especially if they bought it when prices were half of what they are currently and are paying <3% interest.

Axsuul 3y ago
> More dense construction in urban areas will probably help make single family homes affordable for those who want them. Probably the opposite effect for SFHs in the urban areas. People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family, and those are gradually being replaced by these multi-family dwellings, so the supply of them is actually going down.
- stetrain 3y ago
  Well yes. There is more demand for housing in urban areas than there is room for detached single family homes. Either prices will continue to increase beyond the affordability of those raising families, or density can increase. That's why they are urban areas, not suburban or rural. > People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family I also think this is kind of a US-centric experience, or at least doesn't take pricing and location into account. I suppose most people would prefer a single family home in central Manhattan but that doesn't exist, and if it did it would be unaffordable. Now a single family detached home with a convenient transit commute into the city would be great. The US isn't great at building those either.
- ska 3y ago
  > People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family, I don't think it's that simple. I mean, everyone would love a big house on a big yard that is close to everything, but approximately nobody gets to do that. In reality there are always tradeoffs, and the the tradeoffs build in incentives - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, that people respond to. In a lot of the US those incentives have skewed pretty hard recently to exurban singles but that's not universal. These sorts of things are hugely affected by infrastructure planning and subsidies, etc. At the end of the day people choose between the options they have, not the ones they wish they had.

matsemann 3y ago

I feel being trapped in a suburb more claustrophobic. Can't walk anywhere, entirely car dependant for even the smallest things.

stronglikedan 3y ago

Same. I grew up in a house, but I've lived in apartments and buildings in the city. When it came time to buy, I bought a house. I can't ever see myself not living in a house ever again.

mupuff1234 3y ago

Have you ever lived in a city? There's also a pretty big variance between a European city for example which usually doesn't have very tall high rises, and living in midtown Manhattan.

whalesalad 3y ago
Yep - SF and Honolulu were frustrating places to live. Waiting for elevators. Shared laundry spaces. No privacy. Noisy neighbors. Noisy parking garages. Noisy street traffic. I spent 6 months in Sweden and have traveled to a handful of other European countries. The quiet suburban/rural life is for me. After growing up in LA, bouncing around SF, DC and HNL I have settled in Michigan and really enjoy it here. Plenty of room, not very congested, progressive policies. Life is good (albeit sometimes very cold)

j_heffe 3y ago

Single family homes are fine. The problem in the U.S. is that it's illegal to build anything _but_ single family homes in the majority of suburbs. Wouldn't it be better if people had access to a walkable grocery store, coffee shop or park? Or if kids could safely walk or bike to school? Many communities have absolutely zero options and are completely reliant on cars in order to go about daily life.

bluGill 3y ago
Most suburbs also have higher density zones where you can have apartments. The single family homes get the majority of the land space, but there are also apartments and townhouses which are more dense.
- munk-a 3y ago
  Those high density zones suffer economically by being forced to subsidized the extensive infrastructure for single family homes - and in the US it's quite difficult to find an area to inhabit that actually prioritizes pedestrians over cars.
- mikebenfield 3y ago
  There are sometimes apartments spotted around in a suburby area, but due to the nature of US suburbs they don't really get many of the advantages density should bring - everything you might want to go to is still at least a moderate car ride away, there's no people out and about because there's no reason for them to be there, etc. Any time you leave your apartment you go straight to the parking lot and get in your car. It's pathetic really.
  - jjav 3y ago
    > due to the nature of US suburbs The US is a big place. Lots of different suburbs. > everything you might want to go to is still at least a moderate car ride away, there's no people out and about because there's no reason for them to be there Can you point at specific places like this? Google street view links? Every suburb I've lived in the US I can walk to just about everything I need, kids walk to playground and parks, friends houses, etc. I'm curious to see these suburbs where one can't walk anywhere.

SkeuomorphicBee 3y ago

Different strokes indeed. As a very happy apartment/flat/condo dweller, the suburban home life feels to me like being trapped in a tiny deserted island (the cartoon ones, with a single coconut tree), just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness, with nowhere to go within reach. When in the suburbs I end up just staying in the couch all the time, because I can't be bothered to face the big journey necessary to go places, feels very isolating.

whalesalad 3y ago
> just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness Truthfully this is the dream.
jjav 3y ago
> As a very happy apartment/flat/condo dweller, the suburban home life feels to me like being trapped in a tiny deserted island (the cartoon ones, with a single coconut tree), just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness, with nowhere to go within reach. When in the suburbs I end up just staying in the couch all the time, because I can't be bothered to face the big journey necessary to go places, feels very isolating. This sounds like a cartoon version of suburbs! Can you point at actual suburbs (google map links) where you might be surrounded by endless nothingness and can't walk anywhere? I've lived most of my life in suburbs in the US and have never experienced this. The only time I lived in a place I couldn't walk to any destination was when I lived in a quite rural area. But that was rural, not suburban.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  > Can you point at actual suburbs Not the OP but when I lived in the US as an exchange student I lived in a suburb that looked exactly like the one in this video[1], which seems to be a fairly typical middle class neighborhood. Like him I had the same experience of barely being able to walk anywhere, given how little space there even is for pedestrians. [1]https://youtu.be/39QOw4IL0Gk?t=509 https://youtu.be/39QOw4IL0Gk?t=509
  - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

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