Okay, maybe I don't know the quality of the apartments you live in because when I want quiet time for me, I just stay in my flat. A simple brick wall is enough to shield from almost anything.

US apartments are almost always wood and drywall on the interior. Luxury apts may be an exception. No sound isolation at all. You also can get the heat from the neighbors if they like it hot because the walls don't stop that either. Any heavy footfalls, people talking, music playing, someone coughing, most of it resonates through the walls/floors/ceilings. The only apartmentI lived in that was an exception to this was in the middle east.

Or maybe the society you live in is very different from the society I live in.

Undoubtedly. Each time I've been in apartments, there are a bunch of cunts mixed in with a few nice people.

I actually enjoy seeing and talking to the people that live around me.

I am introverted. I don't enjoy much socialization. And I really detest small talk. I can only endure so much "hurr durr weather hurr durr sportsball huurrr muh grind", bullshit before I forcibly evict myself from a conversation. I can do it all and most people will find me pleasant for IRL encounters. But I really don't like it.

And well, the thread is about people preferring single family houses in the US. Those houses on their oversized properties are often completely excluded from any form of community. I feel like this type of lifestyle makes us more and more sociophobic.

People made me sociophobic. Sociophobic is a strong word for it in my case, but my time interacting with people made me not want to be around people. Has nothing to do with the kind of property I lived in, if anything apartment life made it worse. I see your point, but I'm not sure I agree.

In the details, for walkable cities and for the environment, I'm pretty sure there's a very comfortable middle ground for everyone.

The unfortunate thing with people is there is no one size fits all solution. I do think we could benefit from more quality multi-tenant housing options. But I also think havingnthe choice to not be in it is valid as well. The US is too far to the sprawl side and dense urban areas are too far to the sardine side. But there are people that enjoy both ends of the spectrum. I'd (personally) prefer more mixed zoning options where a neighborhood can have activity centers and small shops mixed in with the housing and have everything car and bike centric within those sub communities with the cars relegated to non intersecting areas.

We don't need the density of cities like Paris or Jakarta. But we also don't need eight football fields of land for a single person, or do we?

Even one football field would be hyperbolic here. Some rich fucks might get that much land, or some people way outside of town. Average people get much much less. To your point though I think that there is a middle ground. But also the freedom of choice should be available. It's difficult to reduce car usage in sprawl, but better public services would alleviate a ton of that. I would be more than happy to ride a metro, but my state doesn't have anything like that.

I've lived in both. I definitely don't agree with your perspective. I barely hear any leaf blowers etc year round.