I think this vague idea of them being bad because of various Americanisms is just really "America bad."
I will go through each one of your complaints and point out how they aren't really unique to America in any way and can be applied to a lot of places with celebrated urbanism.
> with their lifeless corridors and alienating common areas
The only corridor I saw in the Danish walk up apartment I stayed in was an alarmingly steep staircase. I'll take a lifeless ADA-compliant corridor over that any day. Half of the stairs I took in Tokyo were basically outside the building which kind of sucked when it was hot and humid.
> and that the ground-floor retail tends to be (apparently) reserved for overpriced retail chains that come and go every few years, presumably because they charge high rents for large spaces.
Do a Google Maps search for "McDonald's in Paris, France." Wouldn't you know it, McDonald's is in the high-rent central districts of Paris. It's almost as if urban central cities are desirable to live in and command high rents!
> They also tend to not have balcony space for people to decorate so from outside they look completely un-personalized.
Do a street view anywhere in central Paris and there are a bunch of balconies but nobody has decorated them at all. A balcony is not a plus for many people: if you have small kids and pets they can be more of a liability.
> If they were less soulsuckingly lifeless nobody would mind them.
The sameness in architectural design is cool when it comes to Tokyo, East Berlin, Scandinavian minimalism and modernism, Philadelphia's historic row homes, Victorian housing across America, architects like Mies Van Der Rohe, but it's not cool in 5-over-1 in North Carolina. Basically, sameness is everywhere, but you're criticizing it in one application in an arbitrary way.
> Also as a result of their soulsuckingness it's hard to imagine treating one as a long-term home, which compounds because they're more soulsucking due to having nobody people treating them as long-term homes.
Countries with lower home ownership rates than the USA: Sweden, France, New Zealand, UK, South Korea, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Switzerland. Your personal opinion is that renters don't treat their rentals like they are home, but that's an example of derogatory classism if you ask me.
> Also they are usually not for sale as condos either so that's another reason they don't feel like long-term homes. (Nor are they able to personalize them significantly).
I will go through each one of your complaints and point out how they aren't really unique to America in any way and can be applied to a lot of places with celebrated urbanism.
> with their lifeless corridors and alienating common areas
The only corridor I saw in the Danish walk up apartment I stayed in was an alarmingly steep staircase. I'll take a lifeless ADA-compliant corridor over that any day. Half of the stairs I took in Tokyo were basically outside the building which kind of sucked when it was hot and humid.
> and that the ground-floor retail tends to be (apparently) reserved for overpriced retail chains that come and go every few years, presumably because they charge high rents for large spaces.
Do a Google Maps search for "McDonald's in Paris, France." Wouldn't you know it, McDonald's is in the high-rent central districts of Paris. It's almost as if urban central cities are desirable to live in and command high rents!
> They also tend to not have balcony space for people to decorate so from outside they look completely un-personalized.
Do a street view anywhere in central Paris and there are a bunch of balconies but nobody has decorated them at all. A balcony is not a plus for many people: if you have small kids and pets they can be more of a liability.
> If they were less soulsuckingly lifeless nobody would mind them.
The sameness in architectural design is cool when it comes to Tokyo, East Berlin, Scandinavian minimalism and modernism, Philadelphia's historic row homes, Victorian housing across America, architects like Mies Van Der Rohe, but it's not cool in 5-over-1 in North Carolina. Basically, sameness is everywhere, but you're criticizing it in one application in an arbitrary way.
> Also as a result of their soulsuckingness it's hard to imagine treating one as a long-term home, which compounds because they're more soulsucking due to having nobody people treating them as long-term homes.
Countries with lower home ownership rates than the USA: Sweden, France, New Zealand, UK, South Korea, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Switzerland. Your personal opinion is that renters don't treat their rentals like they are home, but that's an example of derogatory classism if you ask me.
> Also they are usually not for sale as condos either so that's another reason they don't feel like long-term homes. (Nor are they able to personalize them significantly).
They definitely are sold as condos. But okay.