Density saves nature

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.
- 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.
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.
  
  Awww surely not!
  
  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.
- The suburbs are noisy as fuck. That’s why I want to live in the middle of nowhere.
  
  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.
  
  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.
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’ve lived in shitty apartments but dated two people who lived in “modern” high rise appartments. In mine I heard the neighbours occasionally since they were clearly old motels that they half arsed into units. The modern apartments I practically never heard anyone.

Though “modern” apartment generally price out people who are up all hours making noise it’s more the fact that these appartments usually have body corporates or people that live on site. Being the typical “up all hours stomping around” type would be a quick way to have your lease terminated.

Edit: Duh and the super obvious thing I forgot, improved sound insulation in modern apartments I imagine as well.

Concrete framed buildings help a lot with this. Other noise proof options are out there as well

This has literally been a non-issue for me in every apartment I've lived in for the last 10 years here in Sweden. You probably need some better building codes, this is a solved problem.

I grew up between a big house with it's own forest, and a town house. At this point in my life, I have spent more time living in apartments, and the last 4 years living in studios. Gotta say, I have no desire to move into a house at any point. Having an apartment in a well built city with good public transport is just way nicer.

for a while now i've maintained that commie blocks (at least over here) are some of the best places to live, and i have to conclude that the only reason people think most other areas are at all appealing is because they have simply never actually been in the commie block areas.

It's like how my dad had never once even considered the notion of riding a bike, then one day i convinced him to buy an e-bike and since that day he has driven a car.. literally 3 times, i think. Once you actually consider the merits of it it's so obviously better.
- Yeah. I've lived in one in eastern Germany for a few weeks at one point. It was in a park, which had seating, locations for BBQ, playgrounds, and all streets around where very reduced speed. The flat was sized and partitioned well. Insulation sucked, though I'm pretty sure renovating one to modern standards is cheaper than leveling and replacing it.