A few days at Singapore have more than convinced me that apartments might be better served having more space to walk around, hang, play and run around rather than pack it with clubhouses and amenities that take away from common spaces. Indian apartment buildings pack in amenities at the cost of space. Blame it on feature seeking, cost of land, a scarcity mindset and an inability to just consolidate small pockets of land into bigger tracts for more habitable spaces. But we have a problem. Kids have less room to play. And adults have spaces that are pigeonholed.

Here’s why more open spaces matter: 
1. Open spaces give room to walk around. This is underrated in Indian cities that have very little quality room for walking. 
2. I love good gym equipment but it has a way of gobbling space and curtailing our imagination on how to move. Open spaces with a few monkey bars, boxes and a few medicine balls and a little instruction or videos might encourage people to move in less restrictive ways. 
3. Kids and adults can both use more versatile spaces. Watching kids play makes us drop our guard and lower inhibitions over moving more. And watching adults move around might normalise the idea that you don’t stop moving with age.
4. Convenience. Having big open spaces and simple equipment nearby makes it easy for everyone to play. I saw this with my own daughter and I got to squeeze in a little work in the middle of a fairly-busy holiday. 
5. It’s just less claustrophobic and stressful. This might be a personal feeling. There’s something about open spaces that soothes me. There’s a difference between living with open space around you and having to travel 200 kms to get it.

Takeaway 

Environment shapes activity choices. Just because something makes for a good investment or even makes good business sense it does not translate into great quality of life. And where I live in urban India does feels like a great business opportunity that does not translate into great quality of life. 

Our feature-seeking, bigger is better tendencies might lead us to giving up a very basic human need: space.