Private pools are very rare in China. Most people in cities live in apartments or condos, and most people living outside of cities don’t have much money. You might see one now and the in a multi-million dollar house, but it’s definitely not something the middle class (who, realistically, don’t actually have much spending power by US standards) would expect.
Public pools and hot spring complexes are a thing, and new housing developments occasionally have them. Swimming in the local river is also popular.
But it’s with noting that “middle class” in China is drastically different than the US. If you are middle class in China you are probably sharing a small apartment with a variety of family members, hoping to upgrade from a motor scooter to a car one day, and pretty proud of your refrigerator. A US suburban style home would be pretty luxurious.
Yes. But large parts of the US enjoy a climate in which people will get much more use of, and enjoyment from, a residential pool than anyone would get from a residential pool in the UK.
Well, while house-hunting in the Albany, NY area a very large number of properties either had a pool or used to have a pool. All kinds too–in-ground, above-ground, small, large, everything. You might be able to use a non-heated pool from late May to September here and maybe a bit earlier/later if it was heated. But I don’t understand why there are so many pools around here and most of the time it was a detracting factor to the property.
That probably varies pretty drastically by state though. Higher in the south. Higher in suburbs of cities vs inner city or rural. And new pool builds fluctuate pretty closely with the economy.
I’ll also confirm that private outdoor swimming pools are essentially inexistent in Japan. Even outside of cities, residential properties are rarely larger than 200 m[sup]2[/sup] (2000 sq. feet). There just wouldn’t be any place to put it.
Swimming pools are hugely popular in some parts of Canada. Check out residential neighbourhoods around Montreal:
In some areas in the US like Arizona practically every house has its own backyard pool. But then their “yards” are mostly all sand and gravel. Here in the midwest inground pools are very rare and unless a family is rich I’ve seen more of them removed than installed. People put up above ground pools which are cheap when they have kids but they usually take them out when their kids grow up.
Removing a below ground pool is expensive. We have some friends who faced a quandry. Fix a crack in their pool’s liner for around $10,000 or just go ahead and fill it in for around $15,000. They went ahead and repaired it.
There are around 250,000 swimming pools registered in the greater Sydney area, and based on the 2011 census 926,000 separate residences. So around 1 in 4 homes have a backyard pool.
Maybe I’m being stupid, but how does it cost $15,000 to fill in a pool? Empty water out, smash up the concrete sides and base (most of which could be reused as fill), fill in the hole with rubble, add topsoil and turf. Job done!
Yep. Google’s satellite view of my parent’s house in Cape Town’s southern suburbs shows 13 out of 14 houses on their block have pools, and that seems consistent for the neighborhood as a whole.
It is an ideal climate for them. I’ve seen them far less in United States cities I’ve lived in. Even Pompano Beach, FL which has the right climate. More understandable in other places like Berkeley, CA where you can make more money by turning the pool into four apartments
Alot of the peoples problem was very little access.
You see you have to get this equipment into the backyard and the houses were spaced close together so it would have also required tearing down some fences and yards and rebuilding them afterwards.
It might be cheaper if the pool is in an area with easy access.
The first part for Spain. Even for areas with detached homes or rowhouses, most of them either do not have a garden or have one square meter’s worth of grass. It is much more common to have one in a second-home* close to the same town where you live than in your home; there are rural areas where people have two homes because one is the family’s ancestral farm (or vegetable garden) and the other one is where they live. In my hometown there is one house which is known as “the house with the pool”, because they got one back in the 70s (they haven’t used it for decades).
Some of these, such as (hobby) vegetable gardens with a water deposit that in the summer is used as a pool, aren’t even proper second-homes, although there may be beds.
