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Comment by ambicapter | Hacker News Reader

> “It’s a 24-hour community within the confines of a building—you can choose to stay in the entire weekend and be happy and engaged,”

Excuse my language, but who the fuck wants that?

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Retirees, for one. Many retirement communities are structured in a way to allow that. It's appealing to that segment because walking (or using public transit) takes forever as you age, but driving kind of loses its appeal as one gets older.

I'm not sure what the appeal is supposed to be for young people, but then, I know zero young people who could afford one of these units.

So on the one hand they talk about a growing, thriving, city, and on the other, they're talking about retirees shutting themselves up in their apartments? I would think a retiree would prefer the calm and silence of being nowhere near a city.

Depends. Some certainly prefer to retire far from the crowds if they can. Others prefer not to be dependent on cars and to be near good culture, hospitals, and doctors. I wouldn't read too much into that everything available without leaving the building quote in any case.

I know someone who lived in one of those places. They moved out because they found it too isolating from the surrounding environment.

I suppose the high rise thing is unavoidable to a certain degree in some cities but in the Boston metro area there are so many other options that seem more attractive to me--especially for anything approaching that kind of money.

> Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.

Call it proximity bias to having just seen High Rise, but this sounds pretty Ballardian to me.

Bostonians. It's got a pretty workaholic city culture and people are somewhat cold and private compared to many other regions.

The cold, windy, rainy, changeable weather definitely discourages going outside and interacting much of the year.

Exactly. It's 2016 already, I expect to be happy and engaged sitting on my couch. Elevators are so 20th century.

Someone who's got a 9 degree blizzard outside their window.

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