Having someone live below, above, and on either side within a couple of feet absolutely sounds like prison conditions. As far as hard to leave, unless you’re walking or biking, you don’t have that much freedom of movement, at least in comparison to a car or a motorcycle which becomes much more of a hassle of owning in cities. I’m also not saying cities should cater more to cars either.
I’m in an apartment in a city right now, I really do not notice the neighbors. Apartments are absolutely not as small as cells, unless you’re living somewhere with an extreme land shortage like Hong Kong or something (and even then, the conditions will be more comfortable than a literal prison), or somewhere with some extremely progressive prisons.
For that matter, saying you don’t have much freedom of movement unless you’re walking or biking is a bit like saying you can’t communicate with people unless you talk to them; being able to just leave your front door and walk to places you want to go, to include to stuff like train or bus stations for longer trips (which in turn can reach stuff like airports or car rentals for even longer ones), is freedom of movement.
If anything, having a car as the only good option is much less free, since one is required to acquire a license from the government to use it at all, which they can at any moment revoke and leave you with the choice of resorting to crime, relying on others to move you, or being stuck in one’s own home.
Having someone live below, above, and on either side within a couple of feet absolutely sounds like prison conditions. As far as hard to leave, unless you’re walking or biking, you don’t have that much freedom of movement, at least in comparison to a car or a motorcycle which becomes much more of a hassle of owning in cities. I’m also not saying cities should cater more to cars either.
I’m in an apartment in a city right now, I really do not notice the neighbors. Apartments are absolutely not as small as cells, unless you’re living somewhere with an extreme land shortage like Hong Kong or something (and even then, the conditions will be more comfortable than a literal prison), or somewhere with some extremely progressive prisons.
For that matter, saying you don’t have much freedom of movement unless you’re walking or biking is a bit like saying you can’t communicate with people unless you talk to them; being able to just leave your front door and walk to places you want to go, to include to stuff like train or bus stations for longer trips (which in turn can reach stuff like airports or car rentals for even longer ones), is freedom of movement.
If anything, having a car as the only good option is much less free, since one is required to acquire a license from the government to use it at all, which they can at any moment revoke and leave you with the choice of resorting to crime, relying on others to move you, or being stuck in one’s own home.