The part that comes with it

A family in Abu Dhabi moves into a flat above a busy stretch of shops and cafés, because they want life around them. Lights in the evening, somewhere to walk after dinner, the feeling that the city is awake.

Within a month they are complaining about the noise. The cars idling outside until late. The laughter at one in the morning. The motorbikes.

They wanted the liveliness without the bad parts. Most of us want most things that way. A garden without the weeding. A popular restaurant without the wait for a table. A child who thinks for herself without the arguments at dinner.

Sometimes the bad parts can be reduced. A building can be soundproofed. A street can be managed. But that is real work, it costs money and attention, and somebody has to choose to do it. The bad parts do not wander off because we would prefer them gone.

And often they cannot be separated at all. The noise is not an unfortunate extra attached to the liveliness. The noise is what liveliness sounds like. The people laughing below the window are the same people who make the street feel alive at nine o'clock. Remove them and the street goes quiet, and safe, and empty, and the family gets the silence it asked for and loses the reason it moved.

It is worth being honest about which kind of trade we are looking at. Some downsides can be worked away with enough effort. Others are the upside itself, seen from the other side of the window.

Wanting one without the other is not a plan. It is a wish.