Why not prefer apartments in your own town?

Noise. Neighbours being closer.

I spent seven years living in an apartment. I so enjoyed hearing the neighbors having sex, the thumping music they played, the smell of their cigarette smoke inside my apartment with all my windows closed, the random intrusions by management to repair something unrelated to my apartment, the random rent increases. Add this to the fact that I had no space for a work shop to make anything, and paying the equivalent of a mortgage with no equivalent home equity. Some people love apartment life, but it definitely was not for me.

Name one good reason the average apartment experience could ever be better than living in a house.

People live in apartments to afford shelter, you’d be hard-pressed to find one that actually likes it better.

Sure you can make arguments about the concept of centralized feeling being better for nature, but no one actually wants to do it.