Yep, precisely. "Comfort" including being relatively noise-free, whereas in apartments, people are in worst cases forced to sell and move out because of inconsiderate neighbors. On the con side, suburban house will require regular maintenance , whereas in apartments there are people who automagically take care of that for you.

I've lived in apartments in the US (Tallahassee, Urbana IL, Mt. View, Santa Fe) plus visited others, and can say that the Swedish apartments I've lived (Gothenburg, Trollhättan) in have all been a step or two above their US equivalents.

We have basement space, with an exercise room, which is great for the kids to play in on a rainy day, or to have a party without disturbing the neighbors. Other apartment complexes often have a space which people can book for parties or other larger gatherings. Some even have a guest apartment, which you can book when you have visitors. (Essentially shares the cost of having a rarely used guest bedroom.)

There's solid walls, so we barely hear the neighbors under normal circumstances.

The rare times the elevator breaks, it's quickly fixed.

The shared laundry area is a bit of a nuisance because it needs to be booked. On the other hand, there's plenty of space for washing, drying (both tumble dryer and in a drying room), and a folding/ironing room.

Heat (via district heating) and insulation is excellent.

We don't have a green space as part of the apartment, but the nearest park is a block away, and several more parks are within easy walking distance. Many apartment buildings/complexes have their own small playground (default is a play platform with slide, sandbox, and swing), and again, with larger parks and greenspace nearby.

Since I'm centrally located, I don't need a car - walking, biking, and mass transit work well. Yes, I've had one bike stolen from me. Then again, given how much I've saved by not having a car (depreciation, insurance, gas, etc.) that's not the only factor. Plus, in the US I had one window shot out by a bored teenager with a BB gun, and two tires punctured by someone going around vandalizing cars.

Dog shit has not been a problem.

To be sure, there are many people who live in less dense regions of town, in row houses or detached houses, and have a car. My point isn't that everyone prefers apartments, but rather that apartments, and the areas around them, can be designed better than I'm used to in the US, and can absolutely work well.

FWIW, I live in a smaller city, with about 60K people. The apartment buildings are generally about 5 stories high - definitely not high-rises. Perhaps that's not what you mean by "big buildings", in which case my backup point is that this sort higher density housing is, for the most part, illegal or impossible to build in the US.

And yes, there's much bad to say about, say, the concentrated tower blocks from the Million Programme. I don't mean to say that all Swedish apartments are great, but rather that there's plenty of evidence that shared big buildings do work, in that people raise families there even when they have the option and means to move to single-family homes.

Honestly I don't even disagree with your criticisms (broken elevators, bike theft, etc.), but that only makes it seem more pathetic that a place like California with so much more money can't do so much better. The zoning in California (and most of the US for that matter) really is terrible.

Edit: I want to be clear that I'm talking about the _wealthy_ areas of California. I'd say that this regular crappy building complex in a random city in Slovakia does better than almost all the rich parts of California. The poorer and/or more rural parts of California I'm totally ignoring here (though they're even worse).