this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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Fuck Cars

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A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

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[–] wheeldawg 43 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Name one good reason the average apartment experience could ever be better than living in a house.

People live in apartments to afford shelter, you'd be hard-pressed to find one that actually likes it better.

Sure you can make arguments about the concept of centralized feeling being better for nature, but no one actually wants to do it.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

you’d be hard-pressed to find one that actually likes it better.

It's definitely a cultural thing. Here in Korea, the vast majority prefer apartments. Lower maintenance. More security. Convenience. The social aspect.

[–] wheeldawg -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well tiny countries pretty much have to set it up that way just due to sheer lack of area. In the US, that isn't a problem.

We probably have meadows bigger than north and south Korea combined.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have to or not, Koreans definitely favor apartments. There are western style houses here, and they're just not as popular as apartments. Which is great. I'm living in a house that's quite a bit bigger than a similarly priced apartment.

[–] wheeldawg 1 points 1 year ago

That's likely partially because it's "weird". It can't be normal since it's not possible for a majority to live that way. There always people that are gonna like being unusual, but they're the outlets by definition.

Or it could get well be that all else being equal, loans would still prefer it. My earlier comment was of course colored by US experience.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Change the apartment to a condo and the answer shifts quite a bit. Condos offer lots of amenities and more luxury. Many people choose condos over houses because they like the lifestyle of not maintaining property and living in a dense area with lots of things to do. Even people living in suburban houses like dense cities, they just spend an hour driving to the city for evening or weekend recreation activities that a condo resident can walk to.

One problem with the picture is that if you want to spend much time doing certain things in nature, such as camping or kayaking, you need storage space for equipment. Condos and apartments tend to lack storage space.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think problem there is more that people think you need huge pipes of stuff just to go camping. I don't know of single person anymore who camps with a tent. They just can't handle being so close to nature, I guess, even though that's purportedly the reason they burned 100 litres of fuel hauling their ~~mobile home~~ 40 foot camper to the ~~trailer park~~ RV site.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a student, I would rather rent in a modern apartment building than a house. No yard to take care of, closer to other stuff (grocery store is literally across the street), safer, no insects. I would 100% rather have a nice apartment over a meh house.

[–] reev 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd choose a nice apartment over a nice house too. My dream is a nice two story apartment with big windows for lots of light and an open plan living space.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I've been living in a small one bedroom apartment in a modern 16 floor building for a bit over a year now. The only time I hear my neighbors is when they're taking their dogs out for walking, you can hear them in the hallway. The hot water pressure is better than any house I've lived in in the past. I have a beautiful view outside and my own balcony. These are just some complaints about apartments I've heard from other people.

The reason I compared a nice apartment to a meh house was to be closer in cost, but I agree and would also prefer a nice apartment over a nice house.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

There are reasons I chose to live in my apartment.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can achieve a very high quality of life if you are willing to waste resources. See private jets for an example.

If we want to preserve nature, we need to live denser than the large detached single family homes pictured.

However, row houses with a coop garden is probably a good compromise where people don't have upstairs neighbors, and can grow things for fun. But you aren't taking up a ton of space.

[–] wheeldawg 2 points 1 year ago

I don't disagree. That actually sounds good to me. I'm just saying on a mass scale, most people don't want to do the apartment thing.

I'd also rather not have to go up and down a million levels every time I leave home.

I've never lived in an apartment, so I don't personally know the struggle of upstairs or downstairs neighbors.

I've only ever lived in 2 different houses when growing up, and then me and a few friends rented out another friend's house when they moved out of town.

So that's a pretty awesome situation, plus being able to smoke weed inside just by going down to the laundry room and almost always having at least one person around to smoke with is great.

But I'm used to having houses close by, so moving to row houses with a garden sounds perfect, especially if we can grow our own weed in said garden 😂.