What would the majority do if they had the money? What was their "dream lifestyle"? Buy a single family home, with it's own land and a car.
Sure, not everyone likes that lifestyle, but a hell of a lot of people do like it.
But single family homes set in the suburbs, amongst endless other single family homes? It's nowhere near as good. You have to drive everywhere and there's not enough density to support local shops.
I think it's a mistake to assume that because almost everyone would, with enough money, want their own home and land, that they'd also want it in the suburbs. You just need to look at property values to see that isn't the case - houses and apartments in the city are worth more.
I could trade my terraced house in the city for a much larger one in the distant suburbs. But that would mean driving everywhere, living by busy fast roads, not having a huge range of shops nearby, having to commute further into work, not being able to cycle - all things that make it not worth it. Clearly a lot of my neighbours feel the same way.
I think it’s a mistake to assume that outside the cities it’s all highways and endless suburbs.
The houses with no stores around, with no busses around where you and your kids needs driving everywhere are comparatively cheap. Even people living in houses with yards seem to prefer them if they are either walking distance from forest, walking distance from stores/community centers and ideally both.
The houses in the suburbs of Bay Area peninsula are more expensive than the houses inside SF city limits. Of course there many factors like schools that influence that, but I wouldn't argue your observation is always correct.
And price is due to supply/demand. If the supply of single family homes in the middle of cities was high enough to keep costs down, sure, plenty of families would choose those. But they aren't, so people trade off living close to a city center with a lower cost single family home.
Yes, but I dont see majority of people doing that worldwide. And where they do that, they prefer houses in near villages where there are stores and community centers nearby. And those houses have small businesses in them.
The local stores or walkable infrastructure are not exclusive feature of cities. That is something that does not exists only where it is illegal to open local store near the houses.
With the exception of wealthy countries, I'd argue most people don't have the choice of living in an apartment in the city or a big house in the country.
In wealthy countries, people live in remote houses like that because it is cheaper. Houses in walkable places are way more expensive. You have to be at the level of "shopping and everything is done by somebody else and kids are driven by nanny" rich to get to demographic where it is opposite.
Asia has rich people btw.
I never said people prefer that.
I said people prefer a single family home, a yard and a car. That's not actually achievable in most city centers (unless wealthy) so many people give up location in exchange for a single family home, a yard and car.
Thus, suburbs aren't forced on anyone. Many people chose a single family home, in the suburbs, over an apartment in the city. The cost of that is not being able to walk everywhere, and people are willing to pay that price.
You specifically said "I don't buy it" to the above comment that was about car oriented suburbs specifically.
Nowhere you specified you are changing topic from the above (suburbs) to "house anywhere".
I mean, people leave SF to move to the suburbs south of the city. They need a car, but they can also walk to their Main Street.
Based on the fact the price of that housing is more, I’d argue people want to live in the burbs over an apartment in a city.
> Sure, not everyone likes that lifestyle, but a hell of a lot of people do like it.
Nope, dream ofmost of the people would be to "buy a single family home, with it's own land within the city without doing taxi driver for your kids".
But since this is completely scifi since houses in city are the most expensive people have to settle either for city apartments or house outside city and becoming taxi driver.