[jonpurdy]

You are describing Seoul and Tokyo perfectly.

Despite having tens of millions of people and average densities much higher than most cities, they’re both among the most livable cities in the world.

Both of them inherited pre-war street layouts (in Tokyo’s case, despite being bombed, the layouts stayed the same). So neighbourhoods have narrow streets which makes them safer to walk (due to cars needing to drive slowly) and more interesting. And most neighbourhoods have older 2-4 storey or newer 10-20 storey apartments that provide the density to enable local shops and amazing public transit.

So much easier to raise children when you have everything you need within walking distance in the same neighbourhood, including child care.

[mathverse]

I dont find them particularly livable.Yeah maybe when you are in your 20-later 30s then they are livable but they are absolutely dreadful when it comes to having a family.

All that convenience that you see is there because of that fast paced life style people have.

Source: Married to korean and lived in Korea.

[jonpurdy]

I lived in Korea for years and have visited Japan as well.

Having lived in Toronto, South Korea (Ulsan), and now SF (Sunset), I can’t imagine a better place for a family to live than many neighbourhoods in Korea.

Now that I’ve got a wife, dog, and newborn baby, we needed to purchase a car to get them around (since SF public transit isn’t good enough for this). At least in Toronto we were within a few hundred metres of doctor/dentist/pharmacy, but lacked a walkable grocery store despite being in the city.

There are reasonably nice walkable streets, but in both Toronto and SF the neighbourhood streets are too wide, which results in traffic going way too fast along them. I’ve seen some traffic-calmed streets with artificial barriers and curves but there’s not much.

When I lived in Korea, both neighbourhoods I lived in contained everything I needed, and would have needed if I had a family at the time. And walking around (even with no sidewalks) was a pleasure because cars took the main roads. (Only the delivery scooters were a menace, which I’m sure you were familiar with ).

Of course, this excludes societal pressures, personal finances, etc that affect local Korean and Japanese people.

This is anecdotal, but I've been casually studying urban planning for years to help quantify why I found daily living in Korea to feel so much nicer than anywhere else.

[mathverse]

My take on living in Korea vs Europe (I have no idea about cities in North America)

1. Noisy apartments and noisy streets typical for asian megalopolises.If you can afford to live in one of the more quality condos it's better though.

2. Commuting by subway for an 1h with 1-2 stops to change lines is dreadful during peak hours.It's worse than commuting by car from a suburb here in Europe.Michael Wolf's video captures this very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxZLq3IpYAU

Living in Korea is convenient but not comfortable.

[jonpurdy]

1. I can see noise being an issue in Tokyo and Seoul because build quality isn't great and there's not much noise insulation. So you're heavily dependent on neighbours keeping quiet, and I was fortunate to have good ones. Funny enough, I've had far worse experiences with neighbours in both Toronto and SF despite better sound insulation.

2. I didn't mention commuting because I was referring to living locally within a neighbourhood where you don't have to leave. I didn't commute far (walked to work), and I couldn't imagine commuting with multiple line changes in either Seoul or Tokyo. It was bad enough in Toronto with just a 30 minute commute. (I won't commute ever again due to remote work so it's no longer a consideration for me.)

You're lucky to live in Europe, where the suburbs/non-downtown is much more livable and walkable than North America. In many ways, many European cities have the best of both worlds.