I'll never understand it. If you look at the places that suburbanites visit - the vacations they take, none of those places look like the ones they live in. Paris. Manhattan. Smaller locations like Niagara Falls still represents a level of age and density far beyond suburbia.
Heck, even Vegas represents a level of density when you think about the fact that nobody's visiting the sprawl.
It's like we know what nice places look and feel like, but choose to build the exact opposite because of parking convenience.
People like having yards for their kids to play in and not sharing walls with neighbors. And people visit campsites with no running water, but obviously it would be bad to live somewhere with no running water.
This is one of those truths that is so obvious to me and simultaneously puzzling that others don't see it as obviously the preference of many people.
I have hated every shared-wall/ceiling/floor accommodation I've ever lived in, even fairly high-end newish construction. (I hated the idea that my noise was annoying others almost as much as the times when their noise annoyed me. In my house, if I want to do a woodworking project, listen to Van Halen, or watch a movie at 10:30 PM, I'm free to do that.)
I love having outdoor space that's "just ours". If we want to plant a garden, we plant a garden. If we want flowers, we plant flowers. If we want a trampoline, we buy a trampoline.
One thing to remember is that houses in dense older cities in Europe are often built of stone or brick or concrete (even the newer ones) which results in a building with different properties than what we’re used to with out stick built apartments.
And they often have a garden/yard area. What’s sad is that we don’t really even have the option in the USA for that style.
That makes sense. Different people have different preferences. What's nuts to me is that land use laws take the preferences from one set of people and impose them on vast swathes of a city. It seems weird to me, for example, that you can only build single family homes in 70% of San Francisco, one of the densest cities in the US.
It's really strange seeing the anti-suburban attitudes right after we got a lesson in why relying on communal urban amenities doesn't always work.
We moved to a nice town in walking distance of several parks and small shopping districts in winter 2019. Six months later the shops were all shut or closed for good, and the parks had caution tape all over the playground equipment. They took the swings off the swingsets so the kids couldn't play.
Suburbia is made of families. People want big houses with big yards for their kids. They’re often not bringing their kids on those same vacations. And on top of that, where people vacation is very different from where they’d want to live long term.
I'd rather have a medium house with big safe parks. Growing up out in the woods is great, but having kids who are trapped with no autonomy hurts kids in a way I'd like to avoid.
There's actually a perverse impact, because young people can't drive. So moving to suburbia for "the kids" results in kids being isolated from their community. And remember, vehicular traffic is the 2nd highest cause of death in children in the USA, after birth defects.
Look at tourists attitudes of many of those areas; they glamorize them to an extent, but they'll also warn you to watch out for pickpockets and wear security wallets. They don't want to live there, it's an amusement park.
Heck, even Vegas represents a level of density when you think about the fact that nobody's visiting the sprawl.
It's like we know what nice places look and feel like, but choose to build the exact opposite because of parking convenience.