I have lived most of my adult life (over 30 years now) in flats. Much of this was spent in Edinburgh where a large part of the Georgian/Victorian housing stock are purpose built flats, NOT converted. In Edinburgh living in a flat wasn't seen as particularly different to living in a house - a large, well proportioned flat, often with communal gardens or private parks, was seen as 'just as good' and people bring up their families there quite happily. Edinburgh went through an intense housing boom through the Georgian era and flats seemed to be the best way around the scarcity of land. I find the desire to have one's own 'house' above everything to be strange - I now live in a 1000 sq. ft. flat on Peckham Rye which is bigger and has a far more spacious feel than many of the little terraced houses I viewed that I could afford.