That’s really the foundational problem. If you could exist without bugging or being bugged by the neighbors dense housing would be so much more appealing
I live now in a well-made townhouse. I can’t hear the neighbors, ever, even the living room, or the kitchen. Or the bedroom! I love this place compared to my last crappy townhouse, or any apartment I’ve ever been in, ever.
Unfortunately, where I live it’s very hard to find a well-made apartment or townhouse. I love the idea of an apartment or townhouse where I couldn’t hear the neighbours no matter what they were doing, and I couldn’t smell their cooking, or be exposed to smoke when they’re smoking, and so-on. But, that just isn’t realistic. Even if laws were passed to make that a requirement as of today, it would be decades for the existing housing stock to be sold off.
These threads are full of people making the straight-up weakest arguments for destroying nature…
“…but privacy and noise!”
Ugh, just take all that money you would have spent on the ridiculous driveways, extra lengths of road, utilities, and lawn care and put it into higher quality building materials for the apartments/townhouses.
We build crap quality places in the US and all I hear from my fellow countrymen is “we can’t (or don’t want to) do it any other way”.
That’s why we should build “luxury” apartment blocks in nature with high ceilings and very good noise cancellation, surrounded by agriculture and food forests, ideally growing their own food. Everyone gets a killer view and can quickly go out into nature.
And then connect these big ass apartment blocks with underground train.
IMO this is a universal problem. I’ve had neighbours in a single family house that choose to mow their lawn at 7am on a Saturday and have a very loud pickup truck that I can hear start up any time they drive it.
Seriously. Solid concrete apartments are so impervious to noise that the only times i hear any noise other than them dropping anvils on the floor is when it comes through an open window! I’m more annoyed by people in the room next to me than i am by anyone outside the apartment.
We can’t live in an apartment because it will always have bad insulation. We should all live in single unit housing with… checks the quality of insulation in your average 1970s ranch house oh shit, oh fuck.
Also, gotta say, love to live in a street level neighborhood Cul-de-sac with that one guy revving his motorbike at 3am. Single pane glass, noisy neighbors, and god help you during July 4th or Jan 1st when someone gets ahold of fireworks.
But for some reason, we completely forget about this shit when we talk about apartments. Like the suburbs - particularly the corners near intersections or school yards or big churches or highway on-ramps - aren’t routinely noisy af.
Most of my apartment neighbors are actually really cool, chill people. There’s a handful of people who stink, but like… Oh well?? That’s living around other humans? You adapt to the shitty ones and get along with the good ones.
If you run around assuming all your apartment neighbors will forever be annoying, you’ll never get to know any that aren’t. Same with neighbors in the suburbs. Being around humans can suck sometimes, but if you look you can often find decent people.
Ever heard that quote, paraphrasing the start of it:
You run into a jerk in the morning, you ran into a jerk.
(Maybe you know the rest) If you give that some thought for the rest of the week (assuming you’re out and about), interested to hear any thoughts on it :)
Part of the reason I hate people is I put a ton of effort into trying not to be a jerk, stressing myself out with constant worry from monitoring my behavior at all times, but other people don’t seem to give anyone else the same courtesy.
And that doesn’t even get into how hard it is for me to relate to almost everyone. I watch weird TV shows, listen to weird music, read weird books, and have weird hobbies. Outside of the weather I don’t really have anything to talk to them about, despite their seemingly constant need for interaction.
you can have trees with people or trees without people, we have train, boats, and airports. Enjoy the tundras full of moss and few people, the largest city in the United States (by area) and the reasonably tall mountains.
I have been to a high-density suburb that is honestly not that far from being the second image, and it was literally so dead quiet that i could reliably use the distant sound of the highway to orient myself.
The thing is, you can’t really engineer against anti-social behavior. For every better made apartment you will find that there is an even bigger anti-social idiot who still manages to make life hell for their neighbors.
I’m pretty blessed with my mostly boomer neighbors (🤞) who don’t make a peep after 10PM, but my girlfriend has had some shitty neighbors even though her apartment is pretty well made. Sound insulation between apartments is no match for cigarette and marijuana smoke wafting in from the balcony below any time you want to open the window to air out, or if, heavens forbid, you want to sleep with the window open in the summer, nor does it help much if they are partying and speaking loudly on their balcony until 4AM on weekdays. And then I’m not even getting into how they’re treating shared spaces.
The proximity makes everything so much worse than it would be with a house, at some point only adding distance helps.
I guess that’s just an argument for better made apartments.
That’s really the foundational problem. If you could exist without bugging or being bugged by the neighbors dense housing would be so much more appealing
This is absolutely correct.
I live now in a well-made townhouse. I can’t hear the neighbors, ever, even the living room, or the kitchen. Or the bedroom! I love this place compared to my last crappy townhouse, or any apartment I’ve ever been in, ever.
Unfortunately, where I live it’s very hard to find a well-made apartment or townhouse. I love the idea of an apartment or townhouse where I couldn’t hear the neighbours no matter what they were doing, and I couldn’t smell their cooking, or be exposed to smoke when they’re smoking, and so-on. But, that just isn’t realistic. Even if laws were passed to make that a requirement as of today, it would be decades for the existing housing stock to be sold off.
These threads are full of people making the straight-up weakest arguments for destroying nature…
“…but privacy and noise!”
Ugh, just take all that money you would have spent on the ridiculous driveways, extra lengths of road, utilities, and lawn care and put it into higher quality building materials for the apartments/townhouses.
We build crap quality places in the US and all I hear from my fellow countrymen is “we can’t (or don’t want to) do it any other way”.
deleted by creator
If I could live in the city and never see another person I think I wouldn’t mind it.
No, wait, still not enough trees or animals or stars in the sky.
That’s why we should build “luxury” apartment blocks in nature with high ceilings and very good noise cancellation, surrounded by agriculture and food forests, ideally growing their own food. Everyone gets a killer view and can quickly go out into nature.
And then connect these big ass apartment blocks with underground train.
If it were like that you’d find me living in the food forest and not the apartment.
IMO this is a universal problem. I’ve had neighbours in a single family house that choose to mow their lawn at 7am on a Saturday and have a very loud pickup truck that I can hear start up any time they drive it.
deleted by creator
Seriously. Solid concrete apartments are so impervious to noise that the only times i hear any noise other than them dropping anvils on the floor is when it comes through an open window! I’m more annoyed by people in the room next to me than i am by anyone outside the apartment.
We can’t live in an apartment because it will always have bad insulation. We should all live in single unit housing with… checks the quality of insulation in your average 1970s ranch house oh shit, oh fuck.
Also, gotta say, love to live in a street level neighborhood Cul-de-sac with that one guy revving his motorbike at 3am. Single pane glass, noisy neighbors, and god help you during July 4th or Jan 1st when someone gets ahold of fireworks.
But for some reason, we completely forget about this shit when we talk about apartments. Like the suburbs - particularly the corners near intersections or school yards or big churches or highway on-ramps - aren’t routinely noisy af.
Most of my apartment neighbors are actually really cool, chill people. There’s a handful of people who stink, but like… Oh well?? That’s living around other humans? You adapt to the shitty ones and get along with the good ones.
If you run around assuming all your apartment neighbors will forever be annoying, you’ll never get to know any that aren’t. Same with neighbors in the suburbs. Being around humans can suck sometimes, but if you look you can often find decent people.
I’ve met more decent wild animals than I have people.
Ok, misanthrope.
You say that like it’s an insult.
Someone who hates or distrusts humankind certainly isn’t a positive trait.
Depends on your perspective.
If humanity wants me to like them they need to be at least as well-behaved as wild animals.
Awww surely not!
Ever heard that quote, paraphrasing the start of it:
(Maybe you know the rest) If you give that some thought for the rest of the week (assuming you’re out and about), interested to hear any thoughts on it :)
Part of the reason I hate people is I put a ton of effort into trying not to be a jerk, stressing myself out with constant worry from monitoring my behavior at all times, but other people don’t seem to give anyone else the same courtesy.
And that doesn’t even get into how hard it is for me to relate to almost everyone. I watch weird TV shows, listen to weird music, read weird books, and have weird hobbies. Outside of the weather I don’t really have anything to talk to them about, despite their seemingly constant need for interaction.
The suburbs are noisy as fuck. That’s why I want to live in the middle of nowhere.
try: Alaska
you can have trees with people or trees without people, we have train, boats, and airports. Enjoy the tundras full of moss and few people, the largest city in the United States (by area) and the reasonably tall mountains.
You joke but the Canadian Rockies are pretty high on my list of places to wander naked until I die.
I have been to a high-density suburb that is honestly not that far from being the second image, and it was literally so dead quiet that i could reliably use the distant sound of the highway to orient myself.
The thing is, you can’t really engineer against anti-social behavior. For every better made apartment you will find that there is an even bigger anti-social idiot who still manages to make life hell for their neighbors.
I’m pretty blessed with my mostly boomer neighbors (🤞) who don’t make a peep after 10PM, but my girlfriend has had some shitty neighbors even though her apartment is pretty well made. Sound insulation between apartments is no match for cigarette and marijuana smoke wafting in from the balcony below any time you want to open the window to air out, or if, heavens forbid, you want to sleep with the window open in the summer, nor does it help much if they are partying and speaking loudly on their balcony until 4AM on weekdays. And then I’m not even getting into how they’re treating shared spaces.
The proximity makes everything so much worse than it would be with a house, at some point only adding distance helps.