ValuyMost Americans would rather live in a big house in a car-based community than a small house in a walking-based community.
Most people are introverts, or at least not extroverted, given the option. Small houses mean your neighbors are on top of you, you have to hear them, probably interact with them, on a near daily basis. You have to control your noise, your pet choices are limited, and you probably don’t have a yard.
Few people want that. Some people love it.
I find this ironic as an introvert. I rarely interact with any of my neighbors since it was an apartment with constantly rotating rents. My apartment complex had more people than the rural town I grew up in. City living it’s easy to be one of the faceless masses. My rural family loves to talk to and gossip about neighbors. They constantly run into people they know at the few stores they have.
I never knew my neighbors by sight or name in the apartments I lived in, but I knew a lot of them by sound and smell! Never learned a name, but i knew family issues, their dog’s routine, when they smoked, when they got home late and drunk stumbling on the stairs. I was constantly overstimulated.
Now in a small house my kid plays with my neighbor’s kid, and when we’re gonna be too loud we text each other an explanation/ apology. I love my neighbors. We all rent for context, so it’s not like we’re kind because it’s gonna be life long relationships or something.