Growing upward as opposed to outward helps in numerous ways. It pollutes less, costs less in services, takes up less land and the list goes on. The issue isn’t apartment buildings, the issue is badly built, uninsulated in every way and overpriced apartment buildings.
There should be some sort of regulation as to how soundproof each apartment must be. Soundproof enough to not her casual sex and whatnot, but not too quiet as to never hear someone screaming for help. Add in filters into the hallways or whatever to manage smells and it would be pretty great.
I would think looking at this comment section most individuals on this sub hate cars, but love homes with large driveways and massive streets. To drive the cars we hate?
Mid-density apartment are a thing, maybe 4-6 floors tall.
Though north america apartment design is another issue IMO. North america apartment floor plates are unfortunately not designed for families. When was the last time you saw a 3 or 4 bedroom apartment?
Edit: I should add, when was the last time you saw a 3 or 4 bedroom apartment that cost less then a full size family home in the suburbs.
I work for a architectural firm, and unfortunately most new high-rise towers, and mid-rise towers, that I see come through my desk prioritize bachelor’s pads, 1 bed, 1 + den, or 2 bedroom usually the second bedroom has no window.
It simply comes down to developer cost and north american fire codes. Two exits stairwells minimum and a exit every 45 meters.
This article demonstrates the concept in greater detail.
Ah that makes more sense, I know there are a lot in the suburbs but I can definitely see it being much less common in highrise or midrise tower apartments.
“fuckcars” people literally and exclusively start and end their philosophy with “fuck cars, bikes rule”. No consideration of secondary or related effects. It’s a culty thing.
I spent seven years living in an apartment. I so enjoyed hearing the neighbors having sex, the thumping music they played, the smell of their cigarette smoke inside my apartment with all my windows closed, the random intrusions by management to repair something unrelated to my apartment, the random rent increases. Add this to the fact that I had no space for a work shop to make anything, and paying the equivalent of a mortgage with no equivalent home equity. Some people love apartment life, but it definitely was not for me.
the problem seems to be when people take “apartment life isn’t for me” and then go to the conclusion of “they shouldn’t build apartments for anybody”
you don’t have to live in one. just let people build them. only allowing single family homes doesn’t make single family homes more accessible for anybody, it just makes land more scarce and housing less affordable all around.
Condos don’t have random rent increases, but if there is a capital repair to be done to the building, and the Condo Association doesn’t have a sufficient reserve of condo owner dues to cover the cost, you better believe there’s going to be a sizeable special assessment you’ll have to pay as your share of the expense.
Yes, it does. As an attorney with experience in the matter, though, the scale of the expense can be outrageous if the COA wasn’t properly funding a reserve account, far greater than typical home surprise expenses. Worse yet if you have a few units in the condo that are bank-owned in a state that basically gives banks a free pass from dues on foreclosed/REO condo properties (Florida, looking at you).
I truly am sorry to hear that. But the unfortunately all to common practice of shitty land lords building shitty buildings for quick money should (hopefully) not be what we are aiming for in the future. Landlords were able to get away with far too much for far too long because everyone wasn’t connected and able to video everything. Hopefully, again, it changes now
I don’t have any of the problems mentioned by the first commenter and I live in a relatively cheap apartment. I don’t even hear the people in the other room in my own apartment if I have doors and windows closed. That’s better than some houses I’ve been to and lived in.
How old is your building? Is it “stick-built” (wood frame construction) or something else? Are the walls plaster or drywall? Older construction tends to have quieter walls (but louder floors, in my experience).
Some of the points are unrelated like yeah you got higher rent but that is if you rent, nothing to do with being apartment or not. The same with the mortgage comment, you can buy apartments you know.
Then clearly those apartments were shit, on mine I usually don’t hear anything of the other neighbors except if I am next to the wall connecting to them and they really make super noise or in the bathroom due the vents. And the smoke thing yeah… That also points to shitty insulation and air can get in.
The workshops thing yeah I get it. Technically you could setup something, of course small, if you have a spare room but based on the noise things you said probably not a good idea you might have gotten noise complaints.
best thing to ever happen when I was a horny preteen. Neighbors moved in and boned EVERY night and that girl was LOUD as fuck. And holy shit was she cumming apparently lol
My mom was soooo mad. And she couldn’t do anything about it cause the neighbors refused to acknowledge her!
The house lets you shut out and avoid other people, which is vitally important for safety. People are not good, and they are best avoided when possible. They will hurt you, and enclosed cramped spaces like apartments offer nothing but opportunities and reasons for violence.
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.
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 😂.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
People live in apartments to afford shelter, you’d be hard-pressed to find one that actually likes it better.
I might want to live in one so that I could avoid doing 90% of the stuff that needs to be done in and around my house and focus on things I like doing.
They don’t do shit in general. Just barely enough to fulfill the letter of the law. Nothing even close to trying to maintain property value, just enough to keep them out of court.
I have plenty of friends and family that do though. And the house I lived in was rented and I had to deal with their maintenance or lack thereof in a very similar way.
Edit- never mind, this was directed at the previous guy
Density doesn’t save nature. Habitat protection laws save nature. Make sure that’s part of the plan.
Also, the picture shows the saved nature very accessible to the density. This is not usually what these zoning plans have in mind.
Many important species, especially insects and their predators, can absolutely make good use of patchy suburban habitat if it is properly managed, moreso if it is networked, and natural space nearer homes benefits residents and the environment.
We can’t keep saving mountaintops and deserts, we need to rehabilitate more of these nice valleys and riversides we all like to build cities on.
I own a townhome that i rent out. Have had good tenants for the most part but don’t want to deal with the HOA anymore. So we want to sell but sadly the next door neighbor smokes in her unit so much that it smells in our unit.
In this state there is absolutely nothing we can do legally about the problem. The guy across the street destroyed the grassy area in front of his unit and a lean was placed on his unit until it was fixed or he was evicted in 90 days. But actual damage to our unit we were SOL.
This is why people don’t want shared units. When your neighbor is an asshole you’re usually screwed.
Give me a European style apartment with high ceilings and generous space and you have yourselves a deal!
That said, I’ve been working in my local building industry for almost 20 years and the trend that I see is that though there are more apartments being built, the quality has tanked. We have huge issues with mould, flammable facades, exploding glass, alternatives are rampant through the roof and price gouging.
Unfortunately this has fed the idea that apartment living is no good.
For my local industry, at least, generally houses are built better (not that they’re that great compared to houses built in the 80s or earlier) because the materials aren’t bought in bulk like they do for apartments and there’s less opportunity to ‘off spec’ (cheap alternative products).
That’s not to say that cheap materials aren’t used but there’s a lot less pressure to go bottom of the barrel. Plus, the home owner also has a bit more control than an apartment owner during construction.
There’s also a lot more that can go wrong in an apartment than in a house. Lifts, for example. We had an issue in one of the high rises in the city where a lift was broken and there was a huge queue. Whereas in houses, the main issue I’ve been seeing in housing is poorly built housing extensions from unqualified builders.
All in all, it’s more liveable to be in a poorly built house than in a poorly built apartment.
If the people living in apartments had a say in how they were built… yeah
Nobody chooses to live in a fucking tin can hanging from suspension wires that is so poorly insulated you can hear every bird flying into the windows as though you’re inside a bass drum.
The sounds of my neighbors at 3 am snoring are not a feature you can call part of the “shared experience.”
The prospect of being trapped together because the elevator went out and there’s a fire… oh so joyous. Not to mention all the people’s pets that get left at home throughout the day and I can hear crying with desperation to be let out as though they’re in the next room…
I’m quite happy not to live in a fucking modern apartment thank you very much.
I live in a 51 story condo tower and it’s great. Thick concrete walls, can’t hear a thing. High above the street, so not much street noise gets up to my unit. The hallways are pressured higher than the units, so smells don’t get out.
It’s great; I never want to live in a house, and deal with all the shit that comes with that.
A 51 story tower sounds like a nightmare in any kind of emergency. The hallways are pressurized so one infected person can spread the latest virus to every apartment on the floor, and if there’s a fire, you get to see just how short the ladders are at the local fire department. I lived in a well built three story apartment building at university, literally only one year old when I moved in. The noise was minimal due to lots of concrete construction, but the general consensus was in any kind of earthquake the entire building was going to be a death trap due to a lack of emergency exits with external staircases.
I’m never sharing walls or living in a multistory building again unless it can be designed to my spec, and I’d want it built to withstand 10,000 year events because 100 year events just aren’t really uncommon anymore.
The hallways are pressurized so one infected person can spread the latest virus to every apartment on the floor,
The opposite actually, since the one infected persons virus stays contained in their unit. We had virtually no spread of Covid in the building during lockdowns, with infected people’s illness staying contained to their unit.
and if there’s a fire, you get to see just how short the ladders are at the local fire department.
The fire department doesn’t need ladders to get up the building, the all concrete construction prevents fires from easily spreading unit to unit. We’ve never had a fire spread from one unit to another in the 13 years I’ve lived here.
in any kind of earthquake the entire building was going to be a death trap
Also false, tall towers can easily be built to be Earthquake proof, just look at Japan, or LA.
Seems you don’t really know anything about the actual construction of tall towers or what it’s like to live in them, and are just going by false convictions.
You might want to listen to the first season of The Big One, which was on NPR. One of the things they talk about is how many towers haven’t really faced a big quake since they were built, and the City of LA refuses to say which buildings won’t stand up to even a medium quake. Quake liquifaction is a thing you should read up on; it’s scary because it’s a distinct possibility in some of the most populated cities in the world. Japan has done a great job of building earthquake resistance into their buildings, but again, very few of them have actually faced a massive, local quake, so it’s all based on best guesses. I know my single story isn’t coming down like a tower, and I can personally turn off my natural gas line to reduce fire risk. Towers don’t have individual gas shutoffs AFAIK.
All concrete construction reduces the risk of small fires spreading, but like the Twin Towers proved, once the building is on fire the only way down is the stairs, because external ladders aren’t tall enough. It also doesn’t help when the buildings are clad in flammable materials, like the residential tower in the UK that went up like a candle. I literally don’t stay above a certain floor in hotels when I travel in the US because even the FDNY’s tallest ladder only goes up 137 feet (41.75 meters for the metric lovers). Internationally, I don’t stay above the fourth floor, because most fire departments don’t have ladders to reach much higher than that.
That your building escaped without people inadvertently infecting others is great, but I hope you realize that part of what made Covid so dangerous, especially in the first year, was that it could spread before symptoms presented strongly, and that there was strong asymptomatic transmission. It’s not crazy to think some of those characteristics will be shared with other, much more deadly, viral strains, given that we’ve seen such hopping in bacteria. That’s why antibiotic resistance is so dangerous; germs share with each other. Positive pressure in the hallways being a positive presumes contagious individuals know they’re contagious and will stay inside their flat until they’re no longer contagious. I don’t think I need to tell you how unlikely that is for large segments of the population.
I know my single story isn’t coming down like a tower,
No, but good chance it collapses anyway. I know 100% my building isn’t going to fall due to an earthquake ever.
And those towers in parts of Japan and LA have faced severe earthquakes without collapse.
but like the Twin Towers proved
Several entire floors were destroyed and set ablaze simultaneously, blocking off the stairwells and ensuring an incredibly large part of the building was on fire at the start. Not in any way comparable to a standard fire starting in a condo tower.
like the residential tower in the UK that went up like a candle
Sure, and in any sane country that’s entirely illegal to do. There are zero buildings with flammable cladding in my city. And having seen apartments on fire in other buildings, and that fire failing to ever spread to another unit, I can indeed confirm that most buildings do not have fire spread between units.
Internationally, I don’t stay above the fourth floor
Utterly ridiculous of you, that is a completely irrational phobia. If tall buildings were as dangerous as you think they are we’d have millions of people dying in them annually, but we don’t. Even considering some of the shoddier builds in China, apartment fatalities are rarer than people dying in their own houses.
was that it could spread before symptoms presented strongly, and that there was strong asymptomatic transmission
And yet in a positive pressure building it did not spread, even with confirmed cases in some units it never spread to any neighboring units. We would have been very aware if someone had been symptomatically spreading it in the building as we would have had cases spike, but that did not happen. So no, even a very transmissible airborne virus will not spread between units in a well designed tower.
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