"It's having all sorts of amenities walking distance from my house - library, supermarkets, theatre, cinema, swimming pool, pubs. We can go out in the evening, both drink and walk or use public transport to get home."
Wow, I've never had all that in any city that I ever lived in.
The last city I lived had a population of 250,000 people. Distances from our home to the following:
library - 3.5 miles
supermarket - 1 mile
theatre - 3.5 miles
cinema - 4.5 miles
swimming pool - 2.5 miles
pub - 1.5 miles
None of those I would walk to. Also, after 6pm there is only one bus an hour from the city centre (which is where most of the pubs and restaurants are) to the suburb where we used to live.
Before then we lived in a very nice part of Hale (it's to the south of Manchester, near the airport)
Distances from our home to the following:
library - 1.2 miles
supermarket - 2 miles
theatre - 2 miles
cinema - 2 miles
swimming pool - 2 miles
pub - 0.7 miles
Actually, that was a good thing about living there - a very nice pub about a 15 min walk away. Never walked to any of the other places.
There was a bus stop just around the corner but buses were only once every hour.
I really am amazed that you have found homes that are so close to so many things. My experience has been very different.