We've lived in many types of apartments with a wide array of views: a Burger King outside a bedroom window, Lake Michigan from a living room, brick walls directly across from the dining room...we've seen the highs and lows. When you think of home, what's in your main line of sight?
Survey Below:
(Image via Johnny Jet's travel blog)

Nomade Express Slee...
I live just a few blocks from downtown Seattle, facing west, so I have a perfect view of the city skyline with bits of Puget Sound/the Olympic Mountains peeking in between. That's primarily why I'm willing to pay so much in rent. =)
I live in the south coast of Spain by the sea and the view from my bedroom is the Mediterranean Sea. Still beautifull every morning when I get up. ;-)
We have four large glass areas on the south side of our house. We look at a rolling hay field with woods to the west. We enjoy watching white tail deer, wild turkeys, foxes, and assorted wildlife. Windows in the front of our house look out on our driveway, the road and neighbors' houses. Needless to say, we spend most of our time in the southern rooms of our abode.
I used to have a great view of Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx (NYC). But now they are building a water filtration plant and they simple killed the view.
A dilapidated three-family house with about twenty people of questionable immigrant status living there. They do their best to keep the front clean but the house hasn't seen repairs nor a fresh coat of paint in about 15 years. Their landscaping involves occasionally deforresting the jungle of weeds that comprises the 'front lawn' so that only topsoil and decaying tree stumps remain.
Otherwise my home looks out onto a quiet dead-end street that has the potential to be beautiful. The unit owners in my small condo association get together periodically on Saturdays to clean up the neighborhood and improve 'the view'.
Our sliding glass door/balcony looks out into a bunch of trees and a creek which is currently dry. The trees are awesome though...so green with squirrels jumping through the branches. It probably won't look so great in the winter though.
We pretty much have views of the neighbors apartments and roofs from all windows. We talk to each other when we're both in our kitchens! And my last place had a view of the Hollywood sign :)
All of our windows leed to the woods or the pasture where we see all sorts of wildlife.
i live in manhattan. my lucky view is of trees outside my 2nd floor apartment. the buildings across the street are low so i also see them through the leaves and the sky above. yippee!
My tiny San Francisco apartment has an even tinier back yard with nothing but a colossal lemon tree. I'm on the second floor, and the green leaves and yellow lemons are visible out all the back windows. I don't bother with a curtain in the bathroom because the tree blocks anyone's view, and I get to wake up in the morning to sun and lemons out the end of the shower.
I face the Brooklyn Bridge directly. I never knew there was so much maritime traffic on the east river until I moved there. Despite being in the city I feel very close to nature when I can plot the seasons by the sunrise and the placement of the full moon.
Not high enough for a bay or water view, but I look out on a palm tree lined street and the neon sign for Joe's Stone Crab. Very Miami.
I live directly across from the Frank Lloyd Wright studio and museum (I'm looking at it *rightnow*) in Oak Park, IL. I get to watch the tourists walk around and a lot of people come take pictures of the house on my front lawn. It's fun to guess what country I think people are from when I'm on a conference call for work.
mt. rainier, seattle skyline, puget sound, cascade mountains
I see the neighbourhood. Trees and rooftops. I live on the 5th floor. I can see fireworks on NYE from my balcony.
One side of my house faces Downtown LA, the 5 freeway and the LA river. The other side faces the empty rolling hills above. I don't know which view I like better. I think it's the combination that makes me appreciate both.
I live (until the end of the month) in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, and don't have a lake view. My windows look out onto the ivy-covered wall across the way. Still, I'm next to an elementary school, so I get ivy and the sounds of children at play, so I'm good. :)
From the back, a one (or two?) storey warehouse/production studio, and the blinking Five Roses sign puts me to sleep each night.
http://accessprohibited.wordpress.com/2007/12/02/farine-five-roses/
From the front, I see a 9 storey building :( but also a sublime view of downtown Montreal's skyline.
From Brooklyn Heights, I have a view of New York Harbor including the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Governor's Island, the Verrazano, etc.
I see this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28568845@N08/2859604997/
hideously ugly neo-venetian beige office building with green and gold columns - SO disgusting and tacky.
however, during the summer and at night, i can see coney island's fireworks show from my living room window :)
I miss the view that my old apartment had...but I don't miss walking up the hill!
http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg302/michpc/IMG_2407.jpg
san francisco - i can see the transamerica building and some gorgeous victorian exteriors from my living room.
We look directly accross to an old Catholic Church with some nice stained glass windows in the transom to their front door. The second floor window view into the church is a little creepy - it has a life sized statue of a saint.
my view (right side):
http://bp0.blogger.com/_36cgVDqTYlE/RwmZGiHHbPI/AAAAAAAAADc/G_Kl1Ig4dLI/s1600-h/55-vista 1.jpg
I have view of San Francisco downtown, framed by a beautiful tree.
a small grassy area with a grove of palm trees, frequently visited by ibises (ibii?) nestled beside the church of scientology parking lot.
My house is situated around a field of grass. A kind of courtyard feel with 6 houses looking out on it. There's playground material so the neighbourhood kids play there and if you cross the field you get to an actual courtyard thingy where 6 other houses look out on.
Broadway, NYC, uptown style: bus stop; old KFC turned into a parking lot; trucks making deliveries to the grocery store that plays merengue rather than muzak; sunday afternoon barbeques on the side st. sidewalk, sans permit; flirting teens; drunks staggering out of the chicken joint/makeshift nightclub at 4 a.m, singing one last karaoke song; pigeons, and the occasional lost sea gull; car service drivers making U turns against 2 lanes of traffic; the Chrysler Building far in the distance; the occasional sunrise.
who needs cable?
manhattan sky line and the hudson river
My apartment is perched in the trees overlooking a creek and park. In the warm weather I have birds at the feeders and live music in the that I enjoy from my balcony. Winter snows are wondrous to look at and ski through.
A parking lot :( If I look to my left I get a great view of the dumpster. I often get to see a great beat up blue Honda complete with the loud exhaust and Mexicano music blasting...always the same song. Or sometimes it's a 1986 Buick that should have made it's last trip to the junkyard a long time ago. People pull their car up in the cul-de-sac and leave the stereo blasting and their lights on, which provide a great night light in my bedroom! If I sit in the far right corner of my sofa and look over my shoulder I can see just make out a tree and some grass. My leasing agent told me the apartment was on the other side of the building when I rented...which has a lake and a gazebo and little bridges....liar.
Out of my living room window all I see is the other side of our courtyard building. Out of the dining room window, I've got this great view of the Ike. It's actually a lot cooler than that sounds. To me it has a certain beauty all of its own. And it also means I see a lot of trees, neat houses and the train tracks. I love train tracks and I've always needed to live within hearing distance of them.
a leafy street full of modern apartment buildings (i'm inside the odd older building out). we have a construction site next to us that is currently driving me mad, hopefully they will be all finished in the next couple of weeks.
The view from my bedroom is the neighbors...but the view from the front of the house is a beautiful canal! And thats the only window I ever really look out, so the bedroom view is worth it :)
I'm in North Beach, San Francisco. My view out the front is the Edwardians homes climbing up Telegraph Hill, topped by Coit Tower. Out of my back porch (which is a room primarily made up of 8' windows on 3 sides) I see the entire expanse of Russian Hill including the crooked park of Lombard (my cross street), the Golden Gate Bridge, and the hills of Marin beyond.
Then, from my 22nd-story, west-facing office window in downtown Oakland I have a completely unobstructed view of most of the Bay Area, from the San Francisco skyline, to San Mateo County, Marin, and the Bay and Golden Date Bridges. I am soooo spoiled, but I know it; I never get complacent and appreciate all views every single day.
Office view: http://img329.imageshack.us/my.php?image=officeviewiw4.jpg
Golden GATE Bridge obviously! A Golden Date would be nice too though. . . *groan*
Very uncool--I live in a condo with a view of the parking lot , rows of garages, and the shed for garbage and recycling (at least there IS a shed covering it!)
directly out of my window i see the parking lot for my building (not cool) but just past that is a creek with a beautiful old bridge and lots of trees (very cool).
I live in Hyde Park, Chicago; one side of my apartment faces the building's courtyard and the parking lot view from the other side is actually not bad at all! The businesses on the other side of the lot are lower than most of the apartment buildings around here, so we get a LOT of sky, which I like. My boyfriend thinks it makes the place feel like a really small house instead of an apartment. I do miss the view of Lake Michigan from my old dorm though:(
I look out over a park and a traffic circle that has a giant sculpture in the middle. and lots and lots of trees. i love the trees.