It would get old fast

I consider the ideal distance for friends and family to be 1hr walk/5-10 min drive.

Except for my youngest sister. For her, an Emirates gold flyer program.

My aunt and her family lived in a place like this. It was such a weird vibe. We never walked or rode our bikes anywhere, we just played in the yard.

I literally cannot comprehend secured housing. Its like a dragon or unicorn. Sounds rad AF, but 10,000% unrealistic.

secured housing
I'm not familiar with this term. help?
- I know what it means, but not 100% sure it applies here
  it means stable & affordable. like your landlord can't kick you out, and your rent won't be jacked up unreasonably

I'd be so into this if there was something we could all walk to at the end of the block. Like a main st or something

Friend 3 runs the pub at the end of the block. Doesn't even need a car.
Or a large wall with cannons and machine guns to keep out any trucks with flags on them.

Friend 3 over there without even a driveway, we know who the charity case is lol

That’s Kenny’s house
I didn't even notice, but that's so weird. Buy a house like that and park your car out front?
- parks on the lawn, 'merika!

"It would get old fast"? Op, I'm afraid you don't have good friends. When I was a university student, I was in a shared apartment with two friends. It was great: you always had someone to do stuff with and group activities were much easier to schedule.

Now that I'm older it would be nice to easily check who's up for something, spontaneously grill with everyone or simply sit together in the evening and talk.

My friends group still goes on vacation together from time to time and I love it. If your friends are only enjoyable in small doses... I don't know... that sounds sad.

Also with a house of your own, everyone would have enough space to retreat if necessary.

Besides from the bad gardening that was mentioned by the other posts, I would love to live like this.

The only problem I see here is the lack of fences, trees, and plants. And the size of the houses is a bit too big for my needs.
- At the end of the day it's not the details of the pic but the concept conveyed. All the homies, within walking distance, with someone probably available to hang whenever.
I have a small friend group and we go on vacations together all the time. There are about 6 of us then I bring my kids too. We go to beaches, cabins, amusement parks, you name it. It's awesome. I wish we all lived on the same st too. I bet we could even save some money by cooking meals together more often.
I thought when I had kids I would be out of any kind of group like this but my friends are awesome. Occasionally they will do something and I'll have to turn it down because it would be too hard but they always keep asking and we ask them too.

Who has seven friends?!?

I have my DND group, so four there. Plus two more that participate regularly in our discord and hang out periodically.
So six friends, plus spouses so that's 7 houses occupied.
If any of them elected to keep grass instead of native plants and trees they are out of the cul-de-sac.
- I think one lawn/arena for the cul-de-sac is fine. If I had 7 friends, spouses, and kids in that, we'd be playing pick up football/lacrosse/hurley/rugby/ultimate-frisbee all the time.
With houses no less.
I'm just happy someone else said it.
Six actually, you are one of the seven friends

I'm not social enough to live like this. I like my solitude; hence why I live out in the woods. I have the "option" of inviting friends over, or going to their house, but when I/we have had enough, we can all just leave and go back home and we're not still looking at each other from across the road.

Slop.

That aside, I choose friend 3. The only one without a driveway. Though if I did have a garage, I could establish my workshop there, hm...

Or a Frankensteins monster to terrorize the rest of your friends.
Yeah when I bought my house they asked if I wanted a garage and I said I didn't care because I'm not super into cars or anything but now I wish I had a garage to put a workshop in. My next house will have one for sure but the car is staying outside haha
yeah 3 is way too difficult to get materials to the shop
I don't mind it being in the back instead of a garage, in fact I'd prefer it as it's farther from the neighbours (less noise over to them), but none at all? deal breaker

Who has 7 friends?

Mythical beasts and unicorns

I'm fine with this considering my house is not in the picture.

My dawg, this is epic, I lived it. Granted, I haven't kept up with those people for years, but they were my homies when I was a very young kid

I would kill to have my squad in close proximity like this. My friend group has been together since middle school, it would be a blast

Friends 1 and 7 control the choke point and use it to starve the rest of the friends.

Calm down Netanyahu
Friend 4 has the best line-of-sight for machine gun nest and sniper fire.

And then the wife swapping begins

I was thinking more like a compound with out buildings, sheds and plants other than just fucking grass.

So friend 3 doesn’t have a vehicle and just bugs the others for rides?

Grove Street. Home. At least it was before I fucked everything up.

Where am I gonna get Vietnamese food in this shitty desolate suburb?

Make it yourself
- Vietnamese food just isn't the same unless it comes from a far to small kitchen, with some ancient vietnamese couple yelling at each other. Can really taste that passion.

Because it's 10 miles from public transit and Friend 3 has to bum rides from everyone?

Well that's a shitty looking commune.

McCommune

I've seen people rag on the suburbia of it all but no one has questioned the premise. If the suburban housing was the premise, then it shouldn't matter who the neighbors are and the length of time would be irrelevant: you just wouldn't want to live in the suburbs.

The premise is implying something about the idea of living by friends is masking the inherent problems with the situation. And that mask would fall off after some time had passed. But, if you don't like the suburbs as 90% of y'all felt compelled to make clear, why would that be suppressed and only resurface after time passes?

Why would living by friends turn into a nightmare scenario? If you can't stand being neighbors with them, then I'd argue you guys weren't really friends. Or you have novel ideas about how much you have to interact with neighbors.

This is the first thing that came to mind when I saw this.

(Ed, Edd & Eddy was sooo good)

Who is this “everyone”? Because this ain’t even remotely my dream.

House needs to be in the mountains
Fuck lawns
I don’t have this many friends (by choice)
If I did, I wouldn’t want to be in this close of proximity to them
This place probably has an HOA which is a big fat NOPE

Your home can look like this. No HOA needed!
- Works for me! I’d love to say I built a house. That’s real accomplishment.
There’s one guy I want to hang out with regularly. He can have the adjoining 150 acres and we’ll put a shack full of liquor with some comfy chairs on the border.
- That’s a valuable thing to hold onto. Everyone needs and deserves companionship.
  My wife is my best friend. We both work from home, so we spend like 90% of our time together.
Im with you. I'd love my 2 best friends and my sibling to live next to us, but im surrounded by woods and farmers and I very much like it that way. Yall can keep your suburban mcmansion cul-de-sac, life in the holler is much nicer.
I got to play with baby goats all yesterday morning 💜
- Your life is a dream. Daily real connection to the world and the creatures that make it great.
  Our yard is wild and I let it run loose, with only some control. The southeast is getting old though. I’m a northerner that yearns for the snow and mountains again.

I'll never understand why US suburbs like to utterly nuke any kind of nature around their houses and replace it with "lawns". Like, I'd rip that stuff out and at least plant some potats and shit immediately.

It is actually a anticommunist thing
- Care to elaborate?
- Also a chem industry lobbying to sell fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and paint
It's just that much easier for developers to raze all plants to the ground before grading and running other heavy equipment. These are new construction and so those developers aren't accountable to anyone, and I'm sure the local jurisdiction doesn't care. That's not a justification, for what it's worth, just an explanation.
What I've never been sure of is why people don't eventually realize how much nicer everything would be if they just replanted trees (or left them in the first place) but they seem to be used to suburban hell. If you drive everywhere it's less of an issue that your environment is shit.
- You're assuming people who are forced to buy into the suburban hell have a choice.
  If a person had a choice between a 100k house in a suburban hell or a 100k house in secluded heaven. That they pick the suburban hell.
  Have you seen the housing market in the US?
  It's also funny how "Suburban" meaning has changed. It's supposed to be non-urban.
  But with these "suburban" neighborhoods in cities. It has basically became a word for a neighborhood with houses built next to each other and less about where it's located.
  Suburbs use to be an inexpensive option as opposed to urban living.
So what I suspect happens is that in newer development communities, the people building them just seem to find it easier to level/bulldoze an entire plot of land to build a neighborhood. Then they just don't feel like putting plants and trees back in after construction is complete out of pure cost and laziness.
For older neighborhoods in the US, you'll find a lot more foliage. I love it when I go to an older neighborhood that has large trees that canopy the area. They do exist here...it's just that they have to be a bit older. My condo complex has some wonderful tall trees and plants everywhere. It's not a new complex though and they seem to care more about plantife than some others do. They even randomly planted a massive tree last year for some reason lol. Seemed to require some pretty big machinery to haul it and put it in lol.
Before I bought my current place, there was another complex I was looking at. The trees were even larger and provided even more of a canopy across the area. It was gorgeous. And again, the neighborhood was a bit older.
- Yeah, it's impossible to develop a greenfield site without scraping everything off. You have to create and get approval on water runoff management plan for any new development. That means grading everything and often these days it also means managing and impounding water on-site without dumping it all into the (overloaded) storm drain system. When there's no grass you have to install silt fences to keep silt out of nearby streams while building. You can't get final approval, and remove the silt fence, until there is some kind of ground cover and that basically means grass since it grows fast and is easy to apply. Even if you somehow left the trees there's no way they'd survive the process.
  Fuck McMansion developers, and fuck lawns, don't get me wrong. But it's a reflection of an entire system of land-use policy and not just stupidity, or whatever.
A lawn is generally easier to take care of than a collection of various plants and trees. First thing I do at any new home is plant a fuck ton of edible plants, and my neighbors always talk about not having the time or energy to do the same
In a neighborhood like that, you'd probably end up with a fine and they'd charge you to 'fix' it for you.
I'm unsure if I'm allowed to have tomatoes growing but so far no one has said anything so places without hoa care a lot less!
- Imagine not being able to decide what you grow in your own yard. Wild.
Pest control might be part of it.
- Pests, like birds, butterflies, bees...
My British friend says that Americans don't have lawns. They have grassed in areas.

Hell. I don't want a huge house. And where's the commerce and culture?

My frat house was like this but with one house. Didn't get old.

Plus that big wide field where your kids are going to be snacked up by rocs.

Who is out here with that many friends??

Leave some for the rest of us.
Fuck, yeah, I mean 7 friends seems like a lot to manage.
I'm grateful for my collection.

I would be so excited to be able to own a home and have 6 other friends.

Where does friend 3 park?

Friend 3 subscribes to c/FuckCars.
do you not see the giant cul de sac right in the middle
- Lots of places street parking is illegal. It doesn't allow access for snow ploughs, street cleaners, garbage pickup, busses, etc.

HFIL

Me and the wife befriended the neighbours during lockdown. Hung out all the time, went on several holidays together.

Still pals, was round at one of theirs for dinner the other day.

Lived even closer than this for years. Didn’t get old. Miss it. But had to move on from the communal garden space for the kids.

same.
exactly the same story.
some neighbours (including me) left already and are still in the chat group.
we even had some group drama and solidarity, and even did a Spartacus to the landlord.
miss that so much

The thing that would get old is managing all that damn grass. That and presumably having to drive 20 minutes to get anything.

Never personally had issues with living near or even with friends. Only ever had issues with was a rando roommate I had because a friend had to move for work.

presumably having to drive 20 minutes to get anything.
I've visited friends in such areas. It is hell.
They say "it's so nice that nothing is more than 20 minutes away", while ignoring the fact that nothing is less than 20 minutes away.
They can't even have a corner grocer (due to shitty zoning laws) and they don't realize how much of their daily life their car eats.

Suburbian hell aside, noone prohibits you from befriending your neighbors.

I have to move every year because the rent on my basement only goes up.

This looks like hell

Why would you want a house like that. They are all the same characterless houses

They have plenty of character.
Friend 1 is a banjo player. You can tell by the large porch facing the entrance of the cul de sac from where he watches everyone who comes and goes.
Friend 2 owns a large pick up truck. This is because his house has the best view of the agricultural fields to the left, so he identifies as a farmer, even if he works in a call center.
Friend 3 doesn't have a driveway. He actually thought that he would be able to ride with his friends every day.
Friend 4 lives closest to the forrest so he wears outdoor clothing all the time and pretends to be the alpha male.
Friend 5 is the beta cuck who actually fell for Friends 4's self proclaimed alpha status.
Friend 6 doesn't exist. Nobody wants to buy that house. The parked car belongs to the real estate agent who pays regular visits to the house with potential buyers.
Friend 7 is a conspiracy theorist who keeps mostly to himself and sometimes disappear for days. The upper floor is larger than the ground floor and is filled with horded things that he calls his prepping storage. There might even be other people up there.
Look closer - it's AI.
That's not too say I haven't seen some awkward developments (prefab, 55 and over community) where they obviously leveled everything, built, then added back all young trees. Decades later it's still obvious.
- Yeah, I think most people could guess that
  Doesn't change anything though
I didn't give any fucks about what the neighborhood looks like, other than safe.
I do care about property value though.
- I do care about property value though.
  why?

Suburbia may be a good place to shelter toddlers, but as soon as a child is more than about 6 years old, being trapped in a mcmansion on the edge of town seriously inhibits their growth and independence. They might be able to walk to a friend's house, if they're lucky enough to live somewhere with a sidewalk, but they're unlikely to be able to walk to school, or anywhere else for that matter. ...

... And it's more than just school, too. Kids have lots of sports and other activities, so [in better urbanist places] it's very common to see children walking or cycling while dressed in football gear (not [American] football) or hockey gear (not [ice] hockey), because they travel to all these activities by themselves.
In the US and Canada you have the stereotype of the suburban 'soccer mum', the mother who spends all of her time shuttling her kids around from school to activities to playdates and back. Because until a kid is about 16 years old and has their own driver's licence, they need to be driven around everywhere by their parents. And this is considered 'normal'.

— Jason Slaughter, 2022

People blame the phones but what else.do.they.have to do? I know I didn't spend all day online by choice as a teen
- You've touched on the point Jason raises in literally the very next sentence after the quote I shared in the video that quote comes from.

I want a place like this but I get a bunch of weird artists who visit and camp out for a while and I make them pancakes and they help me do chores.

My inspiration is Mattersville

I’ve seen this show! Ted Danson punts a little dog into the sun!

Grove Street, home.

This looks like some sort of desolate wasteland cosplaying as living space

It would basically turn your friends into family. For better or for worse.

No it doesn't. We all grouped together and bought a second group home to use as a shop closer to our home track.

It's an absolute blast.

Maybe 1 or 2 of those friends is worth living next to. The rest are "friends" and make this a nightmare situation. You never wanted to be around them THAT much.

It would get old fast because I don't drive a car and would turn crazy in such a neighbourhood.