[os2warpman]

People generally only live in community houses if they're poor and have no other options.

"But people in Indi.."

No.

Wealthy Indians have fucking single-family Get Me The Fuck Away From Everyone Else compounds surrounded by high walls, gate houses, and surveillance equipment.

Unless you're a lifelong career civil servant in the foreign service nearing retirement who went abroad working in consulates and embassies immediately after graduating university who has spent their entire life bouncing between different assignments to the point that you don't even feel like a resident of their own country anymore, I know more about this than you.

I know what Africans who live in villages do once they get money. (they buy an SUV or wagon and move to an American-style suburb)

I know what Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans who live in miniscule tower apartments do once they get money. (they buy an SUV or wagon and move to an American-style suburb)

I know what Hip Young Urban Professionals Sipping Coffee On A Sidewalk Next To A Cafe Along The Seine Or Rhine Because Their Apartment Is To Small To Do Anything do the second they get money. (they buy an SUV or wagon and move to an American-style suburb)

It seems impossible for the nu-urbanists and the like to understand the brains of normal human beings who prefer not smelling the farts of others or their terrible cooking, hearing them snore or argue or fuck, seeing them scratch their ass and pick their nose.

[BeetleB]

Not from India, but seen this in other countries. Fully agree.

People who are forced to cohabit with relatives (siblings' families, with parents/grandparents as well) conform, and you don't hear them complain because they don't have a choice. But oh boy there are so, so many problems/conflicts. Harmony is usually an illusion.

They of course get the benefits when it comes to helping raise kids. But you have to pick your poison. Life isn't better - it's just different.

Much of what's in the article is fairly different from multiple (related) families having to share a house. I'm guessing for each of them, leaving is always an option, and it results in a different dynamic than "I'm stuck with these people because I can't afford to leave." If you offend someone who is not your relative, you don't have to live with the consequences forever.

[maxglute]

The wealthiest family India lives in multigenerational skyscraper. Others in multigeneration compounds / culdesacs.

East Asians overwhelming move to nicer / larger apartments or urban villas before fucking off to suburbs with shit schools and bad travel time to nice large, cities.

Rich in poorer/develping countries with shit urban centres may pick private suburbs for privacy/security, because they simply don't have choice / access to world class urban living.

Nu-urbanists are kind of delulu, but they (probably) know more than "normal humans" when it comes to spectrum of livable build enviroment, the vast majority haven't lived in a nice 200-300 sqm apartment in a tier1 city. Most see medicore suburb living > medicore city living.

Ultimately it's not even that expensive to make that kind of housing (i.e. extra sqm construction $$$ to odor and sound proof units is not much). It's much harder to build nice cities people (or rich) want to live in, vs easy to spam livable single family unit suburbs.

That said, housing (and access to services) preference is almost seperate discussion from single family vs communal / multi generation living arrangments. Plenty of people would not want to live with extended family even if culture compels them too. And plenty of people probably wish family was closer.

[DontBreakAlex]

Tell me you're american without telling me you're american.

> I know what Hip Young Urban Professionals Sipping Coffee On A Sidewalk Next To A Cafe Along The Seine Or Rhine Because Their Apartment Is To Small To Do Anything do the second they get money.

They buy a nice apartment on the southern bank of the seine because they're the only one that can afford it, cycle everywhere and enjoy the thousands of places you can go in Paris with their friends while sharing a babysitter because they can walk by their friends places to pickup their kids afterwards.

I moved to SF for work 6 months ago and I can't understand how you guys can "enjoy" living alone and depressed in your empty suburb.

Want to know who actually lives in the "american-style suburbs" of Paris? Poor people who have no choice but to live there

[crest]

Urban doesn't have to mean slumming it. There is a very comfortable peak in the middle between capsule hotel and suburbia.

[yongjik]

> I know what Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans who live in miniscule tower apartments do once they get money. (they buy an SUV or wagon and move to an American-style suburb)

No they don't. I may not know a lot about families, but I know a thing or two about Korea, and the one thing I know is that they overwhelmingly stay in apartments. When they get money, the move to bigger, fancier apartments.

...which casts doubt on your other confident assertions.

[tomashubelbauer]

Isn't the principle still the same? Koreans moving into bigger, fancies apartments to make sure they put more distance and barriers between them and people they don't want to meet. Fancier apartments guarantee a building with reception that can take your packages so you don't have to talk to delivery people. Bigger apartments means people in the building are more spread out so the noise they make is more spread out and as a result dampened. They might not be moving to literal houses, but they are isolating themselves to the same end.

[maxglute]

Distinction is suburban vs urban isolation. Making family residencial space more comfy =/= retreating to single family unit outside urban areas op described. Many east asians still try to knit together multigenerational arrangements if they can afford it, i.e. having extended families live in units of same apartment complexes. I mean granted you can do that in suburbs too, but objection with ops claim is people with money don't default to big private spaces in burbs... especially in dense countries with urban areas where it's PIA to get into city. In which case it's better to stay in city but get nicer spaces. Those with resources will coordinate so family is close. It's not communal housing arrangement but it facilitates communal child rearing. Of course if you have absolute fuck off amount of money you buy a penthouse or mansion depending on lifestyle preference and pay someone else to raise the kids.

[yongjik]

Of course wealthy people, whether they're Korean or American, buy and live in bigger houses. No surprises there. But that's a pretty weak argument to support my parent comment, which reads less like "people love big houses" and more like an anti-urban-density pro-SUV rant.

[rpmisms]

I always appreciate it when the grumpy expert appears on HN.

Are there truly no exceptions that you know of?

[os2warpman]

Of course there are exceptions. Exceptions are irrelevant.

Like when someone says "cats are furry and fuzzy and I like petting them" and someone chimes in "Well what about hairless cats??????"

Why do you think Tata bought the brands and formed Jaguar Land Rover?

Did Ratan Tata "just like the brand" or did he see every single person around him buying Land/Range Rovers as Indians (and people in China, and Kenya, and everywhere else) got wealthier and started moving out to single family homes in suburbs and he wanted to profit off that?

[foobarian]

You must have some stories to tell! Would love to hear more :-)

[zzzeek]

this might be one of my all time favorite HN comments, and it's getting downmodded. Why do you people all suck? How are we supposed to all live in the same house?