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One thing that I didn't see mentioned in this thread is the weather.
The weather in the USA seems quite extreme in comparison to Europe. The cold places in the USA can get extremely cold, and the hot places can become dangerously hot... often for half the year. Many important cities out east and in the south are revoltingly humid in the summer.
London is considered to have terrible weather, but it rains half as much as Seattle, or even New York City.
You never hear about major European cities being destroyed by hurricanes or tornadoes. A cold snap does not seem to render an entire city useless, like it did in Atlanta last year. I admit I do not pay that much attention to European weather, but I have also not heard of major flooding in recent years.
Outside of weather, Europe also does not seem to have an earthquake risk that has the potential to destroy its most populous area and most important economy. I also wonder about water. Does Europe have the same water issues as the USA?
Most is true but England has had serious flooding in recent years.
Don't know about the other countries, but water is never an issue in Scotland. We don't even get a water bill - it's including in our annual council tax which is a flat rate depending on the value of your house.
Outside of weather, Europe also does not seem to have an earthquake risk that has the potential to destroy its most populous area and most important economy.
There is no appreciable earthquake risk in the northeastern U.S., although small earthquakes happen occasionally.
The heat and humidity during the summers can be dealt with fairly easily with air-conditioning. Also, early mornings and evenings have much less heat and humidity.
Outside of weather, Europe also does not seem to have an earthquake risk that has the potential to destroy its most populous area and most important economy.
That's true. But Europe also seems to get plagues and massive wars. I'll take the earthquakes, thank you.
Not particularly so - but we gravitate toward neighborhoods that DO have an HOA because we want the restrictions of a particular area adhered to. We just don't want them to be onerous or to be applied unfairly. We don't want a micromanaging little bureaucrat with short man syndrome to be the president either!
There are all sorts of styles of HOAs - and it's been my experience that the newer the neighborhood, the more stringent the rules are. Also, if there are common areas, you need an HOA.
The kind I like requires a once a year payment (maybe a coupla hundred dollars max) for upkeep of common areas, signage, that sort of thing. I like restrictions such as size of new construction, material (for instance 75 percent brick minimum), no front facing garages, etc. NOT "any flower beds need to be approved by the board members" or "no flags can be flown" or such silliness. But to each his own. Some HOAs are very restrictive and others just lay out basic standards for the neighborhood.
I found people in suburbia to be narrow minded and petty. They were more interested in what year your cars was. In London I don't know if many people I know have cars. No one cares. I liked the space in a large house, but was prepared to accept less living space for socially more. I have a large communal garden I don't have top look after. A massive park a few minutes walk away. You become more inventive with furnishings and colours when you have less space. You do not store stuff and buy food when you need it.
That's exactly how I feel. I'd give up my isolated house with garage, car, foliage, plants, and trees, to live in a small place where it's very dense with people and shops and businesses and cafes and theaters, and everything, all squashed up together, active, with action, and always with action. Dead places are just not for me. The city I'm living in is typical U.S. - all one gigantic suburb. Everything requiring cars. Shops, businesses, and residences are segregated. To shop, you have to drive miles to the supermarket, or the strip malls, or the enclosed mall, or drive down a couple of main streets that have nothing but fast food restaurants, restaurants, shops and businesses that you drive into, and there are no residences in those areas so hardly anyone is able to walk it, and you barely see anyone ever walking. Needless to say, there's no place that you can say there's constant people walking around on the street, no cafes to sit and people watch. All that is non-existent.
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