Ordinary Homes of the United States

  Time period: 1960s to present Location: Florida, as well as other coastal cities and resort towns Up until the industrial era, beachfront property was not desirable. Unless someone's work required them to live near the ocean, people avoided beaches. There were good reasons: storms, pirates, and other invasions. Most large cities in Europe - even some major ports - are located inland.  This changed with the Industrial Revolution. In England, the rich started going to the beach to get away from pollution in the city, and the beach gained a new image as a healthy place to exercise or recover from disease. By the 1800s beachgoing had spread to the upper class in the US as well, with cities such as Cape May in New Jersey attracting tourists, many of who arrived by boat - Cape May is the closest spot on the shore to Philadelphia by boat. A growing middle class and the construction of railroads led to further development of East Coast beach towns. Most of these beach towns remained...

Time period: Late 19th and early 20th century, revived in 21st century. Location: Used to be everywhere.  Today: Seattle and New York City. A mid-rise building with a couple apartments on each floor.   In most cities, you'll find two types of mid-rise apartment buildings in the 4-7 story range. First, there'll be some small historic buildings downtown, side by side like books on a shelf. These are the original point access blocks. Then, there are the big modern buildings taking up a whole block and with long, windowless hallways inside. These are double loaded corridor buildings. Floorplan of a point access block.   Note that apartments have windows facing the front and back of the building.     In contrast, except for the corner units, apartments in a double loaded corridor only have windows facing one direction. Both the point access block and the double loaded corridor were designed to be the most efficient floorplan given the building codes of th...

  Time period: 2020s and onwards Location: California California state law allows a single-family home to become three homes: 1. The main house, which can be whatever size allowed by zoning 2.  An attached or detached Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU). Can be any size, cities must allow at least 800 square feet (enough for a 2-bedroom, 3 if you squeeze it) 3. An attached Junior Accessory Dwelling Unit (JADU), of up to 500 square feet. Example of a house with a Junior ADU and a regular ADU on a 5,000 square foot, 50'x100' lot.  Total of 3,800 square feet of living space with 3 homes with a total of 7 bedrooms (4 in house, 2 in ADU, 1 in Junior ADU). While California state law as of 2022 also allows up to 4 homes ( double duplex ) using Senate Bill 9, the ADU+JADU route is currently more popular, for two reasons: First, fees and code requirements are lower for ADUs. Second, many cities have put up barriers to using SB9 - this is in the process of being corrected by cleanup ...

  Time period: 1950s-1960s Location: Los Angeles and other cities in the Western US 6+ homes and parking spaces, all on a standard house-sized lot, named after the fanciful decor tacked onto the front.  The dingbat was invented in post-WWII Los Angeles to meet the housing needs of a growing city as well as growing rates of car ownership. The standard 50' wide, 150' deep LA lot had been gridded out for detached houses, but many were zoned for low-rise apartments. Before the dingbat, the most popular types of medium-density housing were bungalow courts - a series of houses around a central walkway, as well as multistory courtyard apartments. In 1934, both types were banned by a new zoning law that required parking: one space per unit. Developers solved this math problem by turning the front yard into a driveway, leading to a carport that took up the front of the first floor. To maximize space, the second floor extends over the carport, propped up on stilts. This type of structur...

Location: Philadelphia, Seattle Time period: 1600s-1800s and 21st century   While the 5-story version is new, tower houses are one of the oldest types of homes in the United States.  The early version of it exists in Philadelphia, where they are known as trinities, so named because there are three floors, each with one room. The first floor would be the living room and kitchen, and the upper floors would be bedrooms.  Trinities are also known as "Father, Son & Holy Ghost houses".  When the US declared independence, Philadelphia was the largest city, and its metropolitan area population remained similar in size to New York until NYC overtook it following the completion of the Erie Canal in 1821. Tiny houses went hand in hand with tiny streets. Among the most famous example is Elfreth's Alley in Philadelphia, the oldest continuously inhabited residential street in the USA.When William Penn founded the city of Philadelphia in 1682, he laid out the street grid wit...

Time period: 1990s to present Location: Southern California, Inland Empire especially Riverside County Small trailer parks for farmworkers Key features - Allowed in agricultural zones - Utility connections have been a challenge Cities get the spotlight in discussions of the housing crisis, but in California, where a million people work on farms, there's also a rural housing crisis. Here is a story of the polancos: farmworker communities named after a California Assemblymember's landmark law.  California's fruits and vegetables are grown mostly in the San Joaquin Valley, the Imperial Valley, and the Central Coast. Work is seasonal but labor intensive - during harvest, dozens of workers are needed on each farm. However, while there are lots of farm jobs, there isn't much housing in this area. This is especially true in eastern Riverside and Imperial counties, where there are few cities and towns. Rural land did not allow more than one house per farm. Many farmworkers...

  Time period: mid-late 2010s, 2020s Location: Los Angeles The double duplex is a rooming house pretending to be a bunch of houses.  Key features - Four homes, each with 4 or 5 bedrooms that are designed to be rented out to 16-20 separate households. - Since each building only has two homes, it's built to the simpler standards of the Residential Code instead of the Building Code.  This simplifies approvals, saves costs, and means more small contractors know how to build them. - Since it's technically only four units, it doesn't need to provide as much parking. The double duplex is a pair of duplexes on a single residential lot.  In South LA and Central LA, where this type of housing was invented, it is a pair of boxy 3-story buildings on a 50' wide x 150' deep lot, replacing an older house.   These are not fancy buildings. While rents in California are high, so are construction costs, and every expense is spared when it comes to designing a double duplex. A...