[refurb]

The most expensive are houses near center of city usually.

The houses in the suburbs of Bay Area peninsula are more expensive than the houses inside SF city limits. Of course there many factors like schools that influence that, but I wouldn't argue your observation is always correct.

And price is due to supply/demand. If the supply of single family homes in the middle of cities was high enough to keep costs down, sure, plenty of families would choose those. But they aren't, so people trade off living close to a city center with a lower cost single family home.

[watwut]

> But they aren't, so people trade off living close to a city center with a lower cost single family home.

Yes, but I dont see majority of people doing that worldwide. And where they do that, they prefer houses in near villages where there are stores and community centers nearby. And those houses have small businesses in them.

The local stores or walkable infrastructure are not exclusive feature of cities. That is something that does not exists only where it is illegal to open local store near the houses.

[refurb]

What do you mean "worldwide"? When I lived in Asia people lived in small concrete boxes with no windows so they could work in big cities and not pay a lot for rent.

With the exception of wealthy countries, I'd argue most people don't have the choice of living in an apartment in the city or a big house in the country.

[watwut]

I don't see anything that would suggest majority of people anywhere prefers to live in houses in locations with no transport other then car and no stores etc nearby.

In wealthy countries, people live in remote houses like that because it is cheaper. Houses in walkable places are way more expensive. You have to be at the level of "shopping and everything is done by somebody else and kids are driven by nanny" rich to get to demographic where it is opposite.

Asia has rich people btw.

[refurb]

Whoa, we just went from "single family home" to "single family home...in locations with no transport other than car and no stores etc nearby".

I never said people prefer that.

I said people prefer a single family home, a yard and a car. That's not actually achievable in most city centers (unless wealthy) so many people give up location in exchange for a single family home, a yard and car.

Thus, suburbs aren't forced on anyone. Many people chose a single family home, in the suburbs, over an apartment in the city. The cost of that is not being able to walk everywhere, and people are willing to pay that price.

[watwut]

This is what the thread starts with: the American style of suburb is quite unusual compared to e.g. Europe though, and AFAIK is driven by zoning laws and car-centric infrastructure more so than by consumer choice. Markets don't necessarily offer people what they want, people's imaginations are often constrained by what's available on the market. Something something, "faster horses".

You specifically said "I don't buy it" to the above comment that was about car oriented suburbs specifically.

Nowhere you specified you are changing topic from the above (suburbs) to "house anywhere".

[refurb]

I said “i don’t buy that people are forced to choose suburbs and don’t actually want them”.

I mean, people leave SF to move to the suburbs south of the city. They need a car, but they can also walk to their Main Street.

Based on the fact the price of that housing is more, I’d argue people want to live in the burbs over an apartment in a city.