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It's impossible to not hear your neighbours in an apartment. There are ways to reduce that, but almost no apartment is built like that. Not to mention that often you want to open windows for fresh air and get to breathe in smoke from cigarettes. It's a different kind of hell to live in one. I agree that it looks nicer from outside. There can even be parks nearby. But never venture there after dark, because you'll get your vallet stolen. Due to that every street must be light up during the night, and now you can't see the stars...
Anyhow. People fucking suck
I currently live in a (honestly pretty run down) commie block in eastern Germany. The walls are solid concrete. For me to hear my neighbor, they need to be hammering on wall.
My flatmate has horrible gamerrage, but I only really hear him through the two doors connecting our rooms with the hall, or through the windows if both are open. You can absolutely soundproof apartments
I envy you. I lived in 3 commie block apartments that the soviets built. Even though build from concrete, you could always hear neighbours from all sides except below.
Neighbours above had two children that would chase one another. Sounded like elephants from above.
Surprisingly moving away from the city into a brick apartment actually solved most of the sound problems. The building is even older, was built in between occupations around 1920.
Although there are still problems due to moded cars and bikes driving around. Need to move out again, further...
It isn't great in many other regards, but in that respect I am pretty lucky. And while commie blocks are not the greatest form of housing by a long shot, it shows that affordable and noise-proof living is possible even with older technology, so if we really wanted to, we could absolutely be building apartments today that don't have the acoustics of a cardboard box. Good luck in the search for a new home!