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Comment by habosa | Hacker News Reader

Americans are friendly but when it comes to the decisions that matter (voting and the votes with our wallets) the preference is for the private over the public. People are scared to depend on each other or to be forced to interact with strangers.

So we’ll all try to have our own cars and drive on huge suburban streets and put our kids in private schools and build fences around our yards and vote down zoning laws that would promote density. And we’ll wonder why the people in that cute little European town we visited that one time seemed so much happier.

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I think "scared" is the wrong word for it. People in the US tend to have very low levels of contentiousness, and that in turn makes people want to avoid strangers. The most obvious recent example is the push back against masking. In a high population density urban setting, even a few people who aren't adhering to masking raises the general risk level for people substantially. In less population dense areas it doesn't matter as much, because you're going to encounter fewer people. Another example is noise pollution. One of the primary reasons my spouse and I decided to leave the city for a more suburban area (and one of the reasons we're thinking about moving to an even more rural area) is to escape the constant presence of unnecessarily loud noise. Loud music is the major culprit. Between unbearably loud car stereos and loud neighbors (especially when living in an apartment building), low contentiousness means that even in a moderately dense area it's nearly impossible to find a moment of quiet.

It's quite possible that we're in a vicious cycle where low contentiousness causes people to be more isolated and more cynical and that in turn may cause some people to be less considerate of others, but if that's true it's still a systemic problem and at an individual level looking for more isolation is the only reasonable solution.

Do you mean conscientiousness? Low contentiousness is nearly the opposite of what you are going for

Yep, thanks.

> it's nearly impossible to find a moment of quiet.

Wild. My experience has been if you live in the city long enough you don't even notice the noise. I've lived downtown for 10+ years in different major cities. There's a building being built directly behind me right now and I hear them all day long and it doesn't even phase me anymore. I'm also on a major drag where people drink all week long and walk around shouting at each other.

I kind of like it over the creepiness of being in a quiet empty house with nobody nearby..

I notice gunshots for sure but haven't heard many (any?) of those in Denver vs Dallas.

It does take its toll, though.

I've been living in a big European city for more than ten years now. I can kinda forget about the noises surrounding me, but I always tend to feel less tense when I leave for the countryside. And when I get back, sure enough, I hear all the random noises again. Upstairs neighbor dragging a chair when sitting at the table. Other neighbor taking a piss. Neighbor from across, blasting his TV or his kid crying for whatever reason.

There is never a moment of respite in the city. You wake up, you got your neighbors doign their thing. On your way to the office / park / groceries, you got the traffic noise. At the office: the AC hum and useless office chat. On the way home, traffic again. Back home? Neighbors are back, too.

All mask rules should have been lifted the second the vaccine was available without a wait. But the government kept it for another year. Of course we pushed back on that nonsense. Of course we don't trust those government people.

> And we’ll wonder why the people in that cute little European town we visited that one time seemed so much happier.

except they don't think that

the Americans nod politely and whisper to each other "can you imagine living that close to your neighbors? nooooo thank you!"

HN needs to just drop this notion that anyone opposed to density is a caveman. I love the fact that my neighbors can't see me and I can't see them. Everyone is one an acre minimum. We like it like that and we're not even Literal Nazis!

> HN needs to just drop this notion that anyone opposed to density is a caveman.

I totally agree with that. I've been a city dweller (in Europe) for 45 years or so and hated every second of it. I then lived in suburbia for 5 years and liked it much better.

I then just spent one year in the countryside in a very remote area and loved it. I knew my neighbors (but we all had big plots so it's not as if we could see each other) and already have made friends there.

Now I'm back to european city life and not one of the worst city (Luxemburg) and yet I hate it already. Shitty miserable apartment life, stacked on top of each others like ants "because density".

Just fuck that.

I'm going back to the country side as soon as I can.

Often however the denser the urban core the easier it is for people to choose to live a short distance away in sparsely populated areas and still have ready access to urban amenities like good hospitals. In other words, those who dislike dense cities the most, should be promoting urban density as it increase options for those who like city living and for those who prefer the countryside.

I classify myself as an extremophile; suburbs are the worst of both worlds in that you're crammed in with a bunch of people but on a sprawling 2D plane -- large enough to have little privacy and low access to stuff, but just close enough for possible social friction. Ug.

My favorite, but less practical, choice is also countryside. :p

> suburbs are the worst of both worlds

Suburbs are a compromise for sure, but instead I'd call them a combination of some of the best of both worlds.

Personally now as an adult I'd rather live in a much more rural area to have more land and space to do things, but for children that's kind of boring. So this suburban area gives convenient walkable access to activities, places and friends for kids while still at least having a bit of space and land for the adults.

If this is true, why is it illegal to build anything but low density suburbia in most places?

Well one example is infrastructure...if a formerly-rural area gets a gradual accumulation of homes, chances are they are all on septic systems...so people are using their property for waste water recycling, and there is a limit to how dense this type of living can be.

I grew up just outside a decent-sized city in Canada, now living in Texas...both places, on septic. Its not rare.

Right, but that's one of the reasons to make it easier to build infill development, which is largely illegal due to zoning, parking minimums, height maximums, etc.

I live on 3.5 acres and have a water treatment system and part of the reason is that there's a shortage of homes I _actually_ wanted, which are decent flats in the city where my kids can bike to school, so they're very expensive.

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