The suburban single family home is depressing
Maybe I'm too young to see the appeal. But suburbs are car centric dystopia filled with NIMBYs. I would want to own someplace that is in a good walkable neighborhood where I don't need a freaking car to do everything. Huge suburban homes with people obsessed with materialistic wealth and everyone driving a SUV is straight up depressing. Also owning a home is so much effort and so many things to worry about. I don't get the obsession behind having a detached home on your own lot instead of just having a cute condo in a friendly neighborhood. Which also brings up the question: is there not demand for good walkable neighborhoods and smaller homes in the US? I just see so few of them in limited cities. The majority of places are just car dependent suburbs which look exactly the same. Extreme example: flying over DFW or Phoenix is such a nightmare seeing endless concrete highways with same cookie clutter suburban homes till the eye can see. End of rant
Having a private yard is really nice. Especially if you have kids or pets
You can have private yards in a walkable city. Just look at Toronto/Vancouver/Halifax.
I live in a Bay Area suburb. I want my own office, bathroom etc in a house. I also like cars and so I own 4 and park them on my driveway. Have kids so love the backyard. There’s various reasons. Americans like space and privacy that you can’t ever get in a condo. I also love the lack of density it makes me feel more surrounded by nature. Once you have your own kids you’re not gonna think much about friends or whatnot.
You work 30 years to pay for a copy paste home. From my home I see the exact same home 1000 times. Hell even the doors are the same in almost all homes and are made of chipboard. They keep us slaves with the bare Minimum (running water, yard, roof, a small piece of land you are restricted to do anything on because of HOA etc). Even your cars are plastic and can’t run more than 10-15 yrs. There’s no real wealth it’s all a sham. No wonder most ppl are on antidepressants, stimulants, and materialistic.
The best thing about capitol hill in seattle to me was always the small lot, sfh, 2 or 3 bedroom and still walkable to everything and easy access to light rail .. pretty hard to beat imho
There are pretty limited options in this poll. It’s not suburbs or condos. How about a house built in a developed area with sidewalks and healthy local business?
That'd be my ideal. Currently renting a home in an area like this and it's ideal. Also very close bike ride to higher density downtown. If I buy a home I'd want to stay in a similar area
The vibe is super depressing. Old people doing morning walks. No one remotely visible during the entire day except contractors working here and there. Kids and dogs out in the evening. Rinse. Repeat. No excitement, only silence.
Suburban freedom is an oxymoron
Suburbs give me anxiety. Grew up in one, never living there again.
Suburbs vary a lot depending on where you are. I live in a an SFH in a suburb of Seattle. However there are grocery stores, bars and restaurants within walking / biking distance and bus line that goes downtown a few min away. We have a car because we do a lot of skiing and camping but we definitely don’t need it for our daily activities. The houses are smaller, there’s more mixed units (ie townhouses / condos between SFHs) and most people don’t have space for more than one car if any. But I also don’t get the appeal of giant McMansions and having to drive everywhere, so to me this is an acceptable trade off.
SFH neighborhoods don’t have to be an unwalkable hellscape but most are. Would be nice to have bike lanes and separate network of bike paths. I think a lot more people would ride if that was the case but currently the average American is physically incapable of riding even a shorter distance like say 5mi
I hate being dependent on the car. You are tied to it, can't go out withot it, if it breaks you need to rely on rentals/ubers. If you don't like to drive you still have to, which creates a lot of unsafe drivers on the road. It just increases materialism in the world.
I lived in Bay Area for a bit and started biking while I was there since I had bike lanes whole way to work. Really got obsessed with riding. Even took my kids to school by bike and bike trailer a lot. Really just a fun way to start and end the work day Now I live in car hell and wouldn’t even feel safe riding on my roads. Sucks my bikes are collecting dust but I’m wfh now so don’t have to drive too much