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Spacehunt and gotrecruit are on the money. Even if you spend 3-4x more than the average household's entire monthly income so that you live in a flat that's alm

Spacehunt and gotrecruit are on the money. Even if you spend 3-4x more than the average household's entire monthly income so that you live in a flat that's almost got half as much usable space as a typical suburban home in, for example, the US, you've got your neighbors to contend with. The exorbitant rent or mortgage that you're paying only buys you a bit of extra elbow room (likely translated into more bedrooms and a coffin-like chamber into which your domestic helper, i.e. maid, is supposed to be banished at the end of their workday) and a better address. That money doesn't translate into a higher quality of construction. Everything is built as cheaply as possible and buildings begin to degrade pretty much as soon as they're put up for sale. There's no insulation and floors/ceilings are very thin. Upstairs neighbor's child practicing piano at midnight ahead of a piano exam that they have to pass so that they can cram another cert for another activity into their portfolio for school applications? Their dog(s), which they keep in a cage or exile to the balcony at night, barking or whining? Deal with it. Down-the-hall neighbor having an epic, all-night mahjong tournament and the neverending ka-lakka-lakka-lak-lak sound of the tiles driving you bonkers? Watching a football/soccer match on their TV and bellowing every time that "their" team scores a goal? Deal with it. Condensation from someone's air conditioner dripping from a great height and impacting one of your air conditioners (or a nearby neighbor's) with a loud twang! every few seconds? Deal with it. Then, there are the sidewalks. Thirty-floor (and taller) highrises are the norm, but the sidewalks tend to be the same size as the ones in a low-density suburb ... or smaller. At peak periods, trying to navigate the sidewalks without getting elbowed or shoved into a railing or wall or (worst case) off the curb and into traffic, is an adventure. At off-peak periods, you'll play air conditioner drip Frogger and try to get to your destination without being slimed with a melange of condensation, pigeon poop, and algae/mold/bacteria by inferring a safe path from the locations of puddles on the sidewalk. Aiyah! Look out! Here comes a guy pushing a metal cart laden with 3-liter cans of corn oil barreling towards you down the sidewalk!

kamaal 13y ago
My dad always tells me any apartments look glossy only in their first year of construction. After that, things start to degrade pretty quickly. Start with paint, then window glasses and then leaks and then what not. All the best trying to get every one to pay up to fix the issues related to the general apartment building. It never happens. Unless you are living in a super luxury apartment, I see high rise residential buildings as nothing more than modern day slums and ghettos. The biggest annoyances you come across are the ones related to privacy and hygiene.
- briandon 13y ago
  Your father is wise.
- twelvechairs 13y ago
  Hong Kong high rises are immensely varied. there's a huge amount of postwar public housing of a pretty crummy (if solid) construction. there's also some new apartments that are of a much higher quality than you'd generally see in the west. there's also some new crummy apartments (sometimes marketed as high quality). space is at a premium though and needs must. also - this density is only possible because the government once appropriated and consolidated so much land
- contingencies 13y ago
  I see high rise residential buildings as nothing more than modern day slums and ghettos. Some people prefer to live in cities, for example people who are driven to earn lots of money, people seeking higher education or cultural experience, people looking for partners, etc. For those people, depending upon the density of the urban environment and their will to dedicate significant portions of their waking hours to a soulless commute, sometimes that means there's no other option but these buildings. That said, I basically share your perspective. After living in apartments throughout Asia and London for a decade, I really enjoyed being in a house again in Los Angeles and am currently considering building one somewhere in remote New Zealand. My thinking is that high density cities are lovely to visit, but quality of life for the nine-to-five cityslicker typically sux. The 'burbs aint that much better, given commute overheads, an often broadly similar lack of nature and, per capita, not entirely dissimilar rents (despite the extra space afforded). One point nobody seems to have made is that capital for buying houses is virtually free in Hong Kong .. something like 1-3% interest IIRC.
spacehunt 13y ago
There are nicer neighbourhoods though where you don't have to deal with most of that, where buildings are properly maintained, people keep quiet after 11pm on most nights, and you don't have go on the sidewalk for the walk to the train station. Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating it here. In fact whenever I'm back in Melbourne I miss having an entire shopping centre plus the train station literally just downstairs from home.
creamyhorror 13y ago
I've lived in public housing in Singapore and have experienced the noise (and sometimes worse) of neighbors above and below. The cheapness of construction is definitely a factor in the experience - in nicer (private) apartments, there's less disturbance, and less chance of being dripped on by an air conditioner or hung-out washing. That said, when I visited Hong Kong, I stood at the base of the gigantic blocks of housing there and marveled at how they were the equivalent of small towns. They're: - significantly taller than most Singaporean public housing - have more shops packed on their ground levels - packed much closer (very little space between blocks) so they really feel a whole different level of dense (and Singapore is very dense already). Staring up at their brutally uniform towering shapes is quite the feeling. If they were interconnected and had open corridors between blocks, I could imagine playing a rather interesting game of tag across many buildings. I guess that's pretty much what the Kowloon Walled City[1] was. Dense megacities are interesting in their own right, even if they're not nice to live in (as dystopic cities in cyberfunk fiction show). Now I live in a house, but I miss the conveniences of being able to walk to a shop or bus stop/subway stop in 5 minutes. [1] Incidentally, an arcade in Kawasaki, Japan recreated the Kowloon Walled City - check out the rather interesting photographs at http://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan http://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan - it's going on my list of places to visit.

kamaal 13y ago

My dad always tells me any apartments look glossy only in their first year of construction. After that, things start to degrade pretty quickly. Start with paint, then window glasses and then leaks and then what not. All the best trying to get every one to pay up to fix the issues related to the general apartment building. It never happens. Unless you are living in a super luxury apartment, I see high rise residential buildings as nothing more than modern day slums and ghettos. The biggest annoyances you come across are the ones related to privacy and hygiene.

briandon 13y ago
Your father is wise.
twelvechairs 13y ago
Hong Kong high rises are immensely varied. there's a huge amount of postwar public housing of a pretty crummy (if solid) construction. there's also some new apartments that are of a much higher quality than you'd generally see in the west. there's also some new crummy apartments (sometimes marketed as high quality). space is at a premium though and needs must. also - this density is only possible because the government once appropriated and consolidated so much land
contingencies 13y ago
I see high rise residential buildings as nothing more than modern day slums and ghettos. Some people prefer to live in cities, for example people who are driven to earn lots of money, people seeking higher education or cultural experience, people looking for partners, etc. For those people, depending upon the density of the urban environment and their will to dedicate significant portions of their waking hours to a soulless commute, sometimes that means there's no other option but these buildings. That said, I basically share your perspective. After living in apartments throughout Asia and London for a decade, I really enjoyed being in a house again in Los Angeles and am currently considering building one somewhere in remote New Zealand. My thinking is that high density cities are lovely to visit, but quality of life for the nine-to-five cityslicker typically sux. The 'burbs aint that much better, given commute overheads, an often broadly similar lack of nature and, per capita, not entirely dissimilar rents (despite the extra space afforded). One point nobody seems to have made is that capital for buying houses is virtually free in Hong Kong .. something like 1-3% interest IIRC.

spacehunt 13y ago

There are nicer neighbourhoods though where you don't have to deal with most of that, where buildings are properly maintained, people keep quiet after 11pm on most nights, and you don't have go on the sidewalk for the walk to the train station. Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating it here. In fact whenever I'm back in Melbourne I miss having an entire shopping centre plus the train station literally just downstairs from home.

creamyhorror 13y ago

I've lived in public housing in Singapore and have experienced the noise (and sometimes worse) of neighbors above and below. The cheapness of construction is definitely a factor in the experience - in nicer (private) apartments, there's less disturbance, and less chance of being dripped on by an air conditioner or hung-out washing. That said, when I visited Hong Kong, I stood at the base of the gigantic blocks of housing there and marveled at how they were the equivalent of small towns. They're: - significantly taller than most Singaporean public housing - have more shops packed on their ground levels - packed much closer (very little space between blocks) so they really feel a whole different level of dense (and Singapore is very dense already). Staring up at their brutally uniform towering shapes is quite the feeling. If they were interconnected and had open corridors between blocks, I could imagine playing a rather interesting game of tag across many buildings. I guess that's pretty much what the Kowloon Walled City[1] was. Dense megacities are interesting in their own right, even if they're not nice to live in (as dystopic cities in cyberfunk fiction show). Now I live in a house, but I miss the conveniences of being able to walk to a shop or bus stop/subway stop in 5 minutes. [1] Incidentally, an arcade in Kawasaki, Japan recreated the Kowloon Walled City - check out the rather interesting photographs at http://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan http://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan - it's going on my list of places to visit.