I'm obsessed with housing estates

[Namechangepleas]

I'm going to struggle to put this into words. Over the past few weeks I've become obsessed with new build housing estates.
That sounds ridiculous I know but just thinking about the makes me cringe but I also can't stop. I've been driving around new build estates in my area just for the sake of it to look at them and also searching for them on rightmove.
It's more the estate its self than the individual houses. I feel like I'm in the film vivarium when I'm in one.
I know this makes absolutely no sense but has anyone else ever thought this?/

I hate them. Tiny roads, so many houses and windows they make me feel so claustrophobic I can’t wait to leave.

In reality most of my friends live on them, the houses are fine in isolation but them all clumped together looking the same just gives me the creeps! Enjoy your new hobby.

Mumsnet is ridiculous sometimes. How has this turned into me and others looking down on people or sneering!! Absolutely mental

Around here we are lucky if it’s 20%, often reduced when the building starts

there's one near Swindon that i'm a bit obsessed with (Wichelstowe). i don't want to live there but it's just.....weird....it's actually very well done as these things go but it is alien. a bit uncanny valley. i find myself imagining the people and yeah, it's kind of like a film set or something. anyway i hear you OP.

I think I get you, OP. We have friends who live on one of these estates just outside Glasgow, and family who live on one near Aberdeen. They're kind of fascinating to drive around.

For the Glasgow friends they have a good community of families with young kids which suits them there. It's also quite spectacular at Christmas with houses trying to outdo each other with lights!

Not my cup of tea tbh. Both families moved out of beautiful period properties to live in these cookie-cutter boxes. Warmer though, I guess!

I'd love to be a town planner...

I sort of get it. They are like toy towns. You feel like people get sucked into them and live in a sort of twilight zone where the outside world can't penetrate, you can't reliably get takeaways or taxis or parcels delivered as they don't come up properly on maps. You could definitely get lost on a big one, I have!

Imagine having to try this hard to feel superior about how other people live?

Mind you, there was a poster on MN the other week who said she sought out threads in which posters were struggling financially so that she could feel better about her own circumstances.

Just in case no one has pointed out this is totally wrong. We don't build social housing hardly in this country. It's "affordable" housing which is an absolute bollocks term and completely misused.

I don't think it's unusual OP! Ok, new builds, maybe. But lots of people are interested in the fate of historic estates originally designed to foster social welfare which went wrong such as the Hulme Crescents, Pruitt-Igoe, Fatima Mansions in Dublin etc. Christiane F and Gropiusstadt. It is probably a bit self-serving if you scratch below the surface, but very human. Someone who knows about the sociology of architecture would unpack it much better than I could.

So more a ooojhhh look what the unfortunates have to live in? Golly I'm glad I'm not like that but I do like to look at them?

I love this OP. We live in a town where the local plan is to build 4000 new houses. But the town is surrounded by green belt agricultural land. Theres a massive 800 home estate being built, but then there are several pockets of "executive homes" (4 bed detached, tiny garden, utterly unaffordable) which seem to be in clusters of 50 homes or so. I have been tempted to have a look at their show homes.

If anyone is genuinely interested in the architecture and not in sneering at those who are less fortunate or with inferior taste this is an interesting Instagram account. https://www.instagram.com/modernistestates/

This made me laugh! They are like mazes, there's one near me that lots of my sons school friends live on. I always get lost in it.

You can do it on Google street view.

I suppose it depends what your motivation is. If it’s an interest in planning, build, style etc then fine but if it’s to look down on those living on one then that’s not fine.

I used to quite enjoy looking round show homes years ago.

I have the opposite - they give me the absolute fear. Nothing to do with looking down on anyone’s housing choices at all (I wish I liked new builds and estate houses from the past 40 years because then I could have a downstairs loo an an ensuite bathroom - they’re rare in the little old non estate houses that I feel comfortable in), it’s a feeling of utter dread as soon as I enter an estate, like everything is closing in on me. Weirdly, I only get the feeling in the orange brick housing estates - I don’t get the fear of the bricks are more stone coloured. Can’t explain it, completely irrational fear. Could never live on one because I’d feel like I was having a panic attack the whole time, so old houses only for me (with the whole host of problems that they bring, sadly),

Hmm I suspect this is the type of comment the op was hoping for.

We have a “posh executive estate” near us where the builder really pushed the boat out to make it individual and feel expensive - it’s massive and sprawling and has really weird features like new builds with thatched roofs and weird walled gardens and fountains. But it is still just a housing estate where the houses are all a bit too close together and they are carbon copies of each other and it feels like stepping into a stepford film set. It’s utterly bizarre.

There's a difference between criticising the style of a housing estate and sneering at the people who live there.

There isn't a lot of choice in the UK due to housing shortages. The people I know who bought these places would rather live somewhere else but didn't have many options.

I think we need to be able to talk about rubbish building standards and poorly thought out locations, otherwise nothing's ever going to improve!

My parents love doing that and I used to visit a lot of show homes growing up.

I think I live in one of these! But I love it. So I’m not sure 😂

I live in one too. There are older houses nearby but I can't afford them. You need a lot more money for the same sized house in the non new build estate area.

They're people's homes.
The tone of some PPs is questionable.

@Myridiculousstomach out of curiosity what type of property do you live in?
A street of Victorian detached homes would have been a planned community (or "estate") at one point.
Unless you live in a stand alone cottage or something you most likely live on "an estate".

I think it’s that they always look a bit toy town isn’t it. They are arranged like a kid would would build and arrange houses in a fisher price village, ie with not enough space in them, between them, and not enough community space.

It’s better than high rises obviously, but it’s a very clear sign we need the rip up the planing laws and start an again. A friend of mine has a new build flat which is brilliantly designed - I was so surprised because it’s so rare.