I think your view is slightly skewed by living in Vancouver. True, recently there has been a big movement towards high-rise residential buildings, but this is mostly in Vancouver and Toronto. I’m not sure about Montreal, but maybe there too. Perhaps Calgary. But in much of Canada, most people still live in low-rise buildings and have the same tendency of living in houses as they do in the US. At least growing up in Winnipeg (7th – 9th largest city in Canada depending on how you count), everybody I knew lived in a house and I rode an elevator only a few times a year when I went to my orthodontist.

Even in Toronto though, I don’t know any families living in high-rises. They are mostly for students and young professionals. You don’t raise a family in a high-rise if you can help it.

Hong Kong is a completely different story. Everyone lives in a ginormous high-rise and this has been the case for decades. It’s probably b/c of me visiting my family in HK frequently as a child that I am not surprised about living in a high-rise, otherwise I’d be like Randy.