Idiotic comment. Sharing walls with other humans simply brings different challenges, but also benefits…bringing nationalities into is completely unnecessary.

What would possess someone to say this? You think there is something different about americans or that americans don't live in apartments?

I just go to Walmart often.

And the wonderful solitude and quiet of my old house in a dying town contrasts sharply with my college years living in apartments.

I do think there is something different that leads Americans to desire homes and consider apartment living a failure.

Some of it is the rhetoric about owning a home being part of the American Dream. Some of it is about the nature of the US housing market being a such an avenue to wealth (Americans have a disproportionate amount of their wealth wrapped up in their home). Some of it may be the individualistic mindset.

American apartments in general are shoddily constructed and thus are a lower quality of living. There's no getting around that. Walls that are paper thin with no insulation so you can listen in on your neighbor's phone calls. Poorly done ceilings/floors so the upstairs neighbors' kids running around wakes you up in the morning. Single pane glass so heating/cooling bill is expensive, and the sounds of the street are audible throughout the day (you never want to live above a bus stop). Neighbors from all walks of life, which can be a nightmare if those walks of life include drug dealers and addicts and domestic violence, with norecourse from the police. No elevators up to the fifth floor. No trash pickup for large items. Shite public transportation and no good parking options. Horrible corporate landlord management company to contend with.

I would love to live in an apartment complex in, say, Sweden, but there's a huge cultural component to apartment living in America that would have to change before it matches apartment living elsewhere. Even if building codes changed tonight it would still wouldn't address the issues of city design/public transportation that hurt the very notion of living that tightly together to begin with. It's just not at all convenient to live in an apartment complex that's miles away from the nearest public transportation hub or even a strip mall.

> Walls that are paper thin with no insulation so you can listen in on your neighbor's phone calls.

These sound like wild assumptions with nothing to back them up.

https://basc.pnnl.gov/code-compliance/air-sealing-and-insula...

"Many builders are insulating these walls fully for sound proofing purposes per the International Building Code (IBC), Section 1207, Sound Transmission walls, partitions, and floor/ceiling assemblies separating dwelling units from each other must have a sound transmission class (STC) of not less than 50 for airborne noise when tested in accordance with ASTM E 90."

Also the comment I replied to said 'americans' not 'in america'

Home ownership rate in the US had been over 60% for a long time. Because of that there is a high chance that your apartment neighbors grew up in a detached home and have no habits that apartment dwellers teach their children. Combined with the fact that apartments are usually temporary accommodations this can produce very disruptive neighbors.

This is not unique to America, all the countries that went through rapid urbanization that moved millions of former farmers from detached homes into city apartments have an archetype of a rural rube unable to accommodate to communal living with strangers.

Apartments do not have to be noisy. A well built apartment with concrete floors and concrete interior walls greatly reduces noise. There are many other things that can be done to reduce noise, double pane (or triple) windows, carpeted floors, apartment noise policy.