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 de

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.