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Notes -
People the world over copy suburbia when they get the chance- that's part of the impetus behind Israeli settlement, for example. Obviously someone likes them.
Many Israeli settlements ironically, from looking at pictures of them a whole ago, actually are a beautiful example of "missing middle" or "gentle density" that would make any lib urbanist soy face with joy
It actually cracks me up a bit given the context
God these midrises are sexy
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e57daf0af85443d6803fd19/747e2076-2f75-4a38-bad6-ef69393f6b80/jerusalem-5787806+low+res.jpg
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That’s an odd example because of the elephantine alternative explanation as to why there are settlements built in that particular country. Is there another example?
There are suburbs for upper-middle class and wealthy people across the developing world, from Peru to Nigeria to Kenya to the UAE to Malaysia to China, that explicitly model themselves on American suburbs, at least aesthetically, and often copy even semi-distinctive McMansion elements from the aforementioned. They are usually gated communities and are often still denser than American suburbs (so they look more like communities of townhomes do in the US) but that is the intention.
The difference is that in many of these places there are also a lot of wealthy people of all ages who live in apartments, which is rare in the US outside of NYC. In Indianapolis or Omaha or even Los Angeles you might find young high earning people who live in downtown apartment buildings, but very few families do. In China, like in Paris, Munich and São Paulo, you find many families who still live in apartment buildings even when suburbs are an option.
Yes - there is unmet demand for non-shit urban living in the US, which is why the places with less-shit urban living (like Manhattan, downtown Brooklyn, the bits of SF with no shit) command such a large price premium relative to upper-middle-class suburbs. Some of the families living in McMansions in the Woodlands would choose to live in 1300 sq ft 3-bed apartments in a neighborhood like Neuilly or Holland Park if the option existed.
In contrast, the UK has unmet demand for American-style areas where even the urban core is auto-orientated and you never need to get out of your car except to walk across a parking lot, so Milton Keynes commands a significant price premium even though it is a miserable soulless commuter town. If someone built Indianapolis in a green field in the English Midlands, it would fill up quickly.
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Looking round Israeli settlements on Google Street View shows a lot more multifamily buildings than would be allowed in US suburbia. Israel proper has a housing crisis due to rapid population growth and entrenched NIMBYs in the Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem suburbs, so the settler demand is for any family-sized housing (including multi-bedroom flats), not for American-style suburbia.
The Israeli crisis is due to NIMBYs and planning laws, not lack of space though. The settlements are ideological, there is plenty of land within even 1948 Israel for suburban development. I don’t mean deep in the Negev either.
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