Because to me, it looks infinitely better than the endless and faceless American suburbia.
And frankly, some of those are low-blows that look like they are about to be torn down or aren't actively being inhabited or maintained. And they still manage to look on par (at least in uniqueness if not in presentability)
The average income of the US is like 50k. If you have a family of 4 the size of apartment you get on that income in a city is extremely cramped. Additionally, the allure of walking everywhere quickly disappears when you have a 2 and 5 year old.
I'm European and I wouldn't want to live in a place like most US suburbs ever.
My wife and I actually live in two places right now because of our line of work:
There's a 2BR apartment in a German city with about a million residents. It's not exactly downtown but definitely urban. It's actually slightly less central than the place I grew up but it's where we mostly stay when working on-site for clients in the region.
We also live in a 3BR apartment in a German town with about 15k residents. When we have children, this is where they will grow up until we need a bigger place.
I wouldn't want to live in US cities either, but for completely unrelated reasons. I'm more inclined to believe that it's possible to find a bearable place in urban regions in the US than in the traditional American cliché suburbia. Either way I'd prefer almost any apartment I've lived in (except for the tiny 1BR place we stayed when we were studying) over that.
So the choice remains, do you want your kids to go to a good school or a cruddy school? If you care about your kids and are mildly practical, this question answers itself.
With that statement, you just lost any credibility your point had.
Does it? Many people have small children in my peer group, and I've seen them moving to walking through their neighborhood rather than driving to their errands. The difference might be that German cities are much more hospitable to pedestrians in general. Also, there is sane public transit which is helpful if your toddler doesn't like to walk anymore.
From what I've seen, German cities are much more hospitable to _humans_ in general. Towns too, for that matter. And Germany isn't exactly hostile to automobiles, which is impressive considering there's usually a conflict between walkability and drivability.
Yes, walking 2 miles with a two and five year old is awful. I suppose the experience from person to person is different, but I find two-year-olds to be quite selfish with short legs making them bad walking companions.
>Also, there is sane public transit which is helpful if your toddler doesn't like to walk anymore.
That sounds like not walking to me, but whatever.
If you're walking two miles for normal errands your city is poorly designed.
But within 2000 feet of my apartment I have at least 4 or 5 grocery stores. The main reason they're so damn far apart in suburban America is that a 15,000 square foot grocery store might have 60,000 square feet of parking. US Suburbia basically _is_ parking and roads, with the occasional building sprinkled here and there on top of the skidpad.
If you've never lived outside of it, though, you're blind to it. It's like trying to explain why you'd want an umbrella to someone on Arrakeen.
Or, in this case, like trying to explain distances in feet to a non-American. :)
Good thing there's units(1).
Here's how Dutch parents solve that problem: https://www.babboe.be/media/easyslide/Babboe-City-Bakfiets-T...
Though a 2 year old can still go in a stroller, and the 5 year old can walk. (And some strollers these days come with a platform where the 5 year old can stand.)
I live in a condo, but even in a condo, drastically more space than you'd get in the city for less money.
I feel I have a better quality of life in the suburbs on my income than someone with twice my salary would have living in the city.
I get that it isn't for everyone, but every couple weeks HN has a 'the suburbs are awful' post, and I feel that's incredibly unwarranted. Urban vs. suburban vs. rural is a lifestyle choice and a preference.
I can walk to my community darkroom, where I spend hours developing film and black and white prints.
I can walk to work. It's between 1.67 and 2.5 miles each way, depending on the route. The walk back includes an elevation gain of about 300 feet, giving me a pretty decent cardio workout just by commuting.
I drove briefly today because I had to go to purchase containers to store my overflowing material possessions (oh, irony). I was stuck in traffic, and it sucked. I love getting to bus, or take the light rail, or the street car, or walking.
I love living in a dense neighborhood overflowing with interesting people and shops, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. If that makes me a special snowflake, then so be it.
Lots of people live in suburbia not because they love it, but because they can't afford a decent place in/near the city and a good private school for their kids. Probably 75% of the cool houses in my city are in high(ish) crime areas with awful schools, and the rest are way out of my price range (and often still have bad public schools)
Oh, and you can bicycle for pleasure with far more safety in most suburban areas, and jog too. You can own your own garden, build a shed or workshop on your own property, and do a lot of things that the worker drone lifestyle of an urban apartment won't let you do.
Cycling for transport, on the other hand, is hell on Earth. My rib still aches now and then from the driver who hit me while I rode home from work (and then was shocked I wanted to call the police).
You get "horrible mcmansion suburbs", in large part because they are cheap. People have to live somewhere, and anything that isn't a suburban detached house is unaffordable for 95+% of the American population. People pose this as a choice, but when the only alternative is crappy apartments or being homeless -- it's not really a choice.
I'd love to live in a Brownstone, or a Townhouse, or a Highrise, or a "dense urban area" that can support some form of functional public transit. Someday, I might be a millionaire who can afford that. Until that happens, I live in a suburban box, and drive everywhere, just like every other person in this entire state. Suburbs aren't cheap -- but they're the only somewhat-affordable housing option in the nation.
Being on a suburb like that feels like puttying your house on its own prison for houses.
This indicates to me that developers tend to overvalue their owned lots near a neighborhood that they just filled with McMansions, almost as though they were selling lots that already had local businesses in them. They would do a lot better to just build the strip mall first, stick one franchised business in to anchor it, sell the house lots, then spin off the strip mall ownership into a separate business after 80% of the lots are built.
The home builders see it as someone else's problem. The houses are their moneymaker, and the businesses can take care of themselves. It's almost as though they have never heard of loss leaders.
You gotta get in your car to get most places, sure. But it could be much worse.
Risk is part of life. And the risk that your neighbour might build an ugly house is hardly one of the worst ones. (And the expected future value of your land is a guess, not a right).