this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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I can see that this is going to be an unpopular opinion but the answer is... most people don't actually want to live in commie row houses with a bar downstairs.
I live in suburban Australia. We don't have HoA's and the police don't shoot people, but other than that I imagine that it's comparable to suburban US.
We have a front and a back yard because it's nice to have some room. My kids play in my back yard. We also have about 10m2 of raised planter boxes to grow vegetables. Lots of people also have a shed where you can store hobby equipment like bikes, trailers, camping gear, woodworking, et cetera. Some people have pool tables, sofas, beer fridge, et cetera.
There are some sensible rules about what you can do in your front or back yard but they're for everyone's benefit. For example you can't erect a BFO wall along your front yard, because if everyone does it then the neighbourhood would feel oppressive. There's also some varieties of trees you can't plant because it upsets the neighbours when it inevitably falls over on them in 100 years time.
You can't have shops in a residential street because most people don't actually want that. In most suburbs there are shops, bars, and restaurants a few minutes down the road. Far enough away that I'm not bothered by them but close enough that it's convenient.
In Australia you can choose whether you want to live in a busy city in an apartment with shops up your ass, or in the suburbs, or on a rural property with no towns within 100km. Most people live in the suburbs this guy is questioning, because it's a nice balance of cost, serenity, and convenience.
I believe housing choice is a good thing. The problem is that suburbia almost always takes away housing choice for everyone else.
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.
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).
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.
I don't really follow you regarding cost viability.
I live in a small city of about 70,000. We don't really have a dense CBH. There are small blocks of apartments here or there but not really in a business district.
99% of the population here lives in detached houses in a suburban setting.
It seems kind of nonsensical to me to suggest that suburbs kill off cities due to extreme maintenance costs.
I know people who work in the city's finance department. The taxes people in suburbia pay to the municipality pay for the maintenance and services they receive. If there were a deficit from suburban parasites the city would've become insolvent long ago.
Small town suburbia is viable, but most suburbs (at least that I know of) are not small town - they are urban sprawl. Most of the cost is from strained infrastructure, usually due to overextending a city, which is likely not present in your town. I still would not recommend small town suburbia due to points 2 and 3, but it works.
I will note that most US suburbs are insolvent; I cannot speak for Australia. This is part of the reason why a lot of cities have genuinely abysmal infrastructure, because they cannot afford upkeep. Also keep in mind that due to point 2, property costs in the city rise because expansion becomes way more expensive because you have to tear apart suburbia.