I grew up in one of those post-war suburban housing developments; our house was about 800SF, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. The galley kitchen was so small my dad joked that he worried about my mom getting stuck in it when she was pregnant.
But, as far as they were concerned, they had achieved the American dream. After all, my mom had grown up with a family of 8 living in an 1100 SF house, plus they took in boarders during the Depression - she shared a bedroom with her five siblings.
Our neighborhood was one of those old-fashioned suburbs where everyone had small, detached homes with yards, but in a walkable town with easy access to shops, the pharmacy, the post office, and public transport. My parents only had one car, which my dad needed for work; so my mom and I walked to do errands. Many of the wives in my neighborhood were from the WWII generation and didn't drive at all, but it wasn't terribly difficult to get around as there were buses and the commuter rail.
Yeah. I get that it would be hard to go back to that now for people in a much bigger house. Of course I get that. But what you describe is perfectly functional and was the height of success for our middle class, and would be unimaginably fortunate for most humans who have ever lived. If anyone wants to reduce that to "you will own nothing and be happy," go ahead, but it isn't. Thank you for your comment!
I believe constraints are necessary. I’ve cleaned out houses where every corner is just full of things. We see bigger as better but smaller often means flexibility and choice.
Well, when your prior baseline is Cultural Revolution-era China, living in an apartment in a brutalist concrete block is going to seem like a vast improvement. But I don't think most Americans would envy typical Chinese apartment living even today, which is as aberrational from traditional Chinese urbanism as [your most hated suburb] is from traditional Western urbanism.
Maybe? But like Hong Kong and Singapore also have people mostly in high rises, simply because the land is too scarce for anything else. I do agree you can definitely have something like sprawl with high density as well depending on the overall design and ease of getting around/mixing of uses.
I used to find high rises cool. I was really into the retro-futurist look with deco and Gothic buildings linked by skyways and dirigible ports and such. Nowadays I think they mostly got it right in Paris. Six stories with courtyards is about the maximum density for human flourishing.
That's kind of what a lot of urban Japan looks like. There are the tall dense cores but then almost endless middle-density development, not broken up by highways, subdivisions, etc. It's really nice!
I grew up in one of those post-war suburban housing developments; our house was about 800SF, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. The galley kitchen was so small my dad joked that he worried about my mom getting stuck in it when she was pregnant.
But, as far as they were concerned, they had achieved the American dream. After all, my mom had grown up with a family of 8 living in an 1100 SF house, plus they took in boarders during the Depression - she shared a bedroom with her five siblings.
Our neighborhood was one of those old-fashioned suburbs where everyone had small, detached homes with yards, but in a walkable town with easy access to shops, the pharmacy, the post office, and public transport. My parents only had one car, which my dad needed for work; so my mom and I walked to do errands. Many of the wives in my neighborhood were from the WWII generation and didn't drive at all, but it wasn't terribly difficult to get around as there were buses and the commuter rail.
Yeah. I get that it would be hard to go back to that now for people in a much bigger house. Of course I get that. But what you describe is perfectly functional and was the height of success for our middle class, and would be unimaginably fortunate for most humans who have ever lived. If anyone wants to reduce that to "you will own nothing and be happy," go ahead, but it isn't. Thank you for your comment!
I believe constraints are necessary. I’ve cleaned out houses where every corner is just full of things. We see bigger as better but smaller often means flexibility and choice.
Well, when your prior baseline is Cultural Revolution-era China, living in an apartment in a brutalist concrete block is going to seem like a vast improvement. But I don't think most Americans would envy typical Chinese apartment living even today, which is as aberrational from traditional Chinese urbanism as [your most hated suburb] is from traditional Western urbanism.
Maybe? But like Hong Kong and Singapore also have people mostly in high rises, simply because the land is too scarce for anything else. I do agree you can definitely have something like sprawl with high density as well depending on the overall design and ease of getting around/mixing of uses.
I used to find high rises cool. I was really into the retro-futurist look with deco and Gothic buildings linked by skyways and dirigible ports and such. Nowadays I think they mostly got it right in Paris. Six stories with courtyards is about the maximum density for human flourishing.
That's kind of what a lot of urban Japan looks like. There are the tall dense cores but then almost endless middle-density development, not broken up by highways, subdivisions, etc. It's really nice!
I never had more than one bathroom until I was in my mid 30s!
How many people were your family?
4 in my family if origin and in my own family except in the years between my first husband leaving and my remarriage, which brought us back to 4
That could be tight but very doable
It was both.