To me as a European who lives in a medium-sized city the US-style suburb model sounds very claustrophobic. The suburbs aren’t walkable, you can’t cycle anywhere either. The only way to get around is by car. Commercial areas are the same, shops are separated by streets and large parking lots, if you want to visit another shop you have to go by car.

It’s like each house or store is a little island and you can only island-hop using your car. Once you get out of your car, you’re stuck on yet another island. It’s like one of those older computer games from when they didn’t have the tech to stream large open worlds yet, just a bunch of small areas and a loading screen (car) in between.

I believe housing choice is a good thing. The problem is that suburbia almost always takes away housing choice for everyone else.

1. Suburbia is not cost viable.

Notice how suburbs are almost always built around cities and almost never on their own. There is a reason for this; they are heavily subsidized by the city and its infrastructure - eventually killing off the city due to extreme maintenance costs and uncooperative tax base (NIMBYs). This is a parasitic relationship, fullstop.

2. Suburbia is not recyclable.

It is extremely difficult to reuse suburban infrastructure for non-suburban purposes. This effectively eliminates scarce land until a patron spends 10x removing what it costs to install (not happening). This is why suburbs are often just abandoned instead of repurposed (see any rust-belt suburb).

3. Space should not come at the cost of the future.

To navigate suburbia (only viable by car) is to put massive strain on the human body and environment. We were built to walk. If you do not, you will become fat and die (see America). Cars pollute the air to no end, and "third places" can never truly be established - killing communities.

Wanting space is fine, but people should find a way to do it sustainably without harming themselves and everyone around them.

So here's the thing:

The housing that people want is the housing they can afford. Sure, I'd love to live in a 20,000 sqft mansion up in the Pacific Northwest rainforest with a built in pool and free-range dino nuggies dispensers, but I can't afford that, so I live in what I can afford. Problem is, our zoning doesn't permit really anything except unaffordable, bland tracts of McMansions that force you to drive to everything. If you can't afford that, then, oh well, get bulldozered, idiot.

I want to make living in my city affordable; if all my kids can afford is a $400 studio with no car, then that should be an option.

Suburbs are not feasible, cost wise, from a municipal standpoint. They've been heavily subsidized by the denser parts of the municipality, and surprisingly by the rural parts too.

The cost of maintaining infrastructure in a fit state of repair (water main, sanitary sewer and treatment plants, roads, bridges, storm sewer, curbs, sidewalk, street lighting) for these semi-spread out houses is the same as maintaining it in denser areas without the benefits of the higher tax income.

Additionally, the spread out housing, at least here, has overtaken lower lying wetlands, filled in creeks, and increased water flow down the water courses that do remain, causing erosion, sedimentation, and killing off the aquatic wildlife. Ontario has just started to require Low-Impact Development, standards that require constructing artificial wetlands, soak away pits, raingardens, green roofs, or similar measures to reduce water flow off site and encourage aquifer refilling. These all cost extra money above and beyond what the cost of repair has been up to now.

I work as a consultant designing infrastructure repair and rehabilitation for municipalities, and have seen the cost of these projects. For most of them, it's the equivalent of their property tax for ~40yrs, and typically has a lifespan of 50-75yrs on the high end.

Suburbs are being subsidized through grants provided by our Federal or Provincial government, which is funded through other taxes.

most people don’t actually want to live in commie row houses with a bar downstairs.

of course! these types of building were an imperfect answer to a problem of how to make enough living space for many people fast enough and cheaply enough. the apartment blocks went a long way from prefabricated panel blocks in a concrete jungle to the point i absolutely loved living in my modern block apartment in the city center in a quite spot between two parks, 10min walk from a train station and a shopping center, with a terrace, garden, playground and childcare across the street and within 15min from any shop, restaurant, pub, doctor or anything else i ever needed.

You can’t have shops in a residential street because most people don’t actually want that.

what? i mean, i can believe you can be conditioned to not wanting it. just like many americans think unions are bad or any other crazy shit like that... but generally no. anyone who ever lived in a place where they can run down the street to buy milk when they run out or just walk sane distance to a pub will disagree with you.

I would really enjoy a house i could afford.

It's not a "nice balance" it is literally the opposite of that.

For what it is worth, those suburbs you are describing are decaying in America. Those bars and shops just a few minutes down the road closed a couple generations ago. Many are empty lots or were razed for additional road lanes or gas stations. (In my city: another shooting range for police.) There aren't even sidewalks outside the neighborhood where I live, and this is in an area developed in the 1980s 'shining house on a hill' era of America.

Most people live in the suburbs this guy is questioning, because it's a nice balance of cost, serenity, and convenience.

The cost is blown out of the water, but for serenity and convenience goes: the conveniences are decaying and so the serenity is about all you can hope to get for the cost. More than anything though the spiraling cost destroys that balance. Most renting folks I know can't afford the shops or restaurants anyway because of housing costs. American suburbs are increasingly isolated.

I can totally understand not wanting a bar or tavern nearby. In Brazil, those always have excessive loud music and if you live nearby, you won't sleep. Drunkards are the least of the problems, surprisingly.