My apartment was in a high-rise in a convenient location. But I felt like I reached the point in life where I lost interest in the perks of living in a big city since I rarely went out.

So I bought a house in one of the nicer suburbs here, and QOL has actually gone down. My old high-rise was peaceful and quiet; here in the suburbs, there's nearly constant landscaping noise for about half of the year, which is extremely annoying and distracting since I WFH. I find myself reaching for my noise-canceling headphones several times a day.

My house is in a prime location in this suburb, and a lot of stores and restaurants are technically walkable or bikeable, but the car culture is insane. At least in the city, drivers are aware of pedestrians and bikers. Out here it seems like the drivers assume there are no pedestrians or bikers. I've lost count of how many times I've seen drivers virtually slam on their brakes as I walked across a street at a red light or stop sign.

Maintenance and upkeep of the house is an enormous waste of time/money and a distraction. At my old apartment, I could just fill out a form online, and some building engineer would come over and fix things.

People here build their lives around driving, but I spent nearly my entire life relying on walking, biking, and public transportation. I see my neighbors driving around throughout the day doing who the fuck knows what.

Even in this "nice" suburb it's generic and has boring, gray strip malls in some parts of it, which kills any sense of character for the suburb. At least the city had an iconic skyline.

TLDR suburbs aren't for everyone. Maybe it'd make more sense if I had kids.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5789697&forum_id=2#49373746)