I hate having people stacked on top of me. I don't want to sit in my backyard talking normally and have 8 different neighbors be able to hear my conversation.

If I were to ever go back to the South, I'd go for space just to have some room away from neighbors. And it's the south so hopefully a bunch of big trees for separation, and it would probably be affordable to get a house overlooking a lake or something. You can get a big house and a big yard for hardly anything in some nice areas. I wouldn't call sitting on a big rider a "pain." But dealing with the bugs is obviously a pain. Property in the south isn't for going out and enjoying a nice thick lawn with your shoes off. Like you said, it's usually crappy or patchy, and there are too many bugs to walk around barefoot. But the open space gets people off your back.

Can't afford privacy in Utah.