
Where’s this from, op? I find it mighty familiar, I think I’ve seen this very flower.

Where’s this from, op? I find it mighty familiar, I think I’ve seen this very flower.

Not a yank, as you’ve already discovered. But to answer your question, I don’t know about suburbs and the like, my experience is only with apartment building hoas and no, you can’t leave them. The thing is part of the property is shared–like corridors, stairways, lifts, any space that is not a home, even the facades…

Excuse me if I’m wrong but central hvac system, the word ‘complex’ instead of just ‘apartment building’, no junkies, soundproofed walls… doesn’t sound like ‘working class high density housing’ to me. At least that’s not a thing where I’m from.
Now a ‘major city’ without rats and roaches??? It has to be a cold as fuck city, definitely not a thing in temperate climates.

I live in a ‘high density working class neighborhood’ in a big dense city, and have for most of my life except some years I moved to a small village. Certainly not healthy, I would be even hard pressed to call it ‘community’. ‘Rat race’ or ‘crab bucket’ seem more appropriate.

I live, and has lived for most of my live, in a big and dense city, one of the biggest in the eu. I lived, for a few years, also in a small village (~2k-3k people) that’s now my (adopted) hometown. The city is definitely much more concrete heavy than the village. My sister still lives there in a much bigger home than me and her utility bills are identical to mine even given that I’m not at home half of the days for work or visiting her, so no the power consumption is much more dependent on the quality of the buildings. The other points are probably right, but I prefer the power lines to the rats and cockroaches, the garbage piling up on every corner, the smell, the noise, the crazies and junkies (we have those in my small hometown too but not even near in quantity or ‘quality’).
I get the impression that all the proponents of these ‘high density’ housing ideas haven’t lived in a high density working class area ever, and probably wouldn’t last long if they get themselves in one.

Denser housing doesn’t lead to more sustainable communities, it leads to more insanity. Even grouped single family houses start to be awful with hoas and shit.
I’ve never used a 3d printer so take this with a grain of salt, but I have made a few simple parts in freecad and autocad (without any experience or formal education with them, and without a physical part as reference) and it didn’t take much time, I guess someone who knows what they’re doing having the broken part to just copy it could do it in minutes.
I found this map, but there ain’t many of them that side of the pond.
I just learned about these so don’t really know how they do it, but you can cannibalize some of the broken ones for spare parts. Also for what I understand many are periodic or even stable so people who need a part can get it and come back another day. I’ve seen one looking around done in a place where they have a 3d printer.
With cleaning and lubing; screws, bolts, nuts; cables and contacts you can resuscitate a lot of appliances and domestic machines. If you can also 3d print the shitty small plastic parts that break, even for a sturdier one if possible, that could save people a lot of money and tons of waste.
I think it’s more likely the latter, that I’ve seen another of their pieces (in Madrid or Granada, maybe…) but it’s not impossible that I’ve seen this one in or around Getxo either.