My kids like to play in our yard. I do woodwork as a hobby. My neighbors spend summer by their pool. I like my privacy. I like quiet and space. I like strong community.
I spent 15 years apartment living all over the world, and couldn’t be happier moving to the suburbs.
It is just apartments are much cheaper and you can often not have a car if you live in an apartment.
Where? Appartements in downtown Munich cost as much as in San Jose but salaries are one third of that.
My ex originally is from there and I used to work there and my colleagues from the Texas office had more purchasing power at local real-estate than their counterparts from the Munich office.
Not everyone who lives in a city is in a highrise downtown, most aren't. Not everyone that lives in a city is in an apartment. You wouldn't know that by reading this thread. The two options seem to be a large house in the suburbs or a highrise downtown.
It would cost double what I pay for me to live with 1/4 of the space in a city.
I made a pretty intentional decision about what I wanted, and actually have far more space than where I grew up. I was actually taught to live on less, but have gone in the far opposite direction.
Now, can suburban homes offer you MORE space? Absolutely! And if I had the kind of hobbies that merited that additional space I'd probably want to live there. However, as someone who grew up in the suburbs, has friends in the suburbs, etc - the number of friends I have who actually use that space for enjoyment and not junk storage is literally just 1 guy who has a sweet CNC and metal working space in his garage and basement. Everyone else has a garage used for cars + storage and a basement rumpus room with maybe a tiny 8x8 workshop somewhere near the mechanicals (HVAC and Water heater)
I do tend to be the one neighbor out in the yard the most by an order of magnitude.
I also have a 60 acre rural property because even a quarter acre in the suburbs doesn’t give me enough space to play.
No, I haven't built a cedar strip canoe (nice flex), but I do have the room in my 2.5 car garage if I wanted to. Partly because we only need one car in the city for a 4-person family (which is also part of the "cost" calculation). I could also use my basement, if I was inclined.
==It would cost double what I pay for me to live with 1/4 of the space in a city.==
This is impossible to say without knowing how much you pay and how much space you have.
I moved from Brooklyn NYC to NJ suburbs and my 15 year mortgage on 4 bed 2 bath decent yard was about the same as a 1 bed 1 bath 3rd floor walk up that was pretty snug once you had two people and two cats.
Or just come visit a bit and be another name on the list of Americans who had their mind blown.
I’m not American (but live here), and have lived in Europe and traveled most of it.
This HN hivemind if believing there is one type of person and one type of lifestyle is absolute lazy nonsense. I’m guessing you already know why I don’t need to drive a large pickup truck too?
Just like in America, living in a proper house in Europe does usually mean moving further away from city center into suburbs. The main difference is that those suburbs do have better public transportation.