Where did one-story America come from?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-10 19:46

Historical overview of the development of the sleeping areas of the United States, which began during industrialization.

Building residential areas in the United States begins with land development and site preparation. The land is divided into individual lots, streets are prepared, sewerage and storm drains are built, electrical networks, gas and telephone lines are supplied, and only then the construction of houses begins. Such plots are prepared and built up by one company, and I have already written in detail about such construction, but this was not always the case.

Today I will tell the story of the "American Dream" during the 1900s - 1940s and consider the possibilities of such construction for the population from a financial point of view.

1. Until the twentieth century, most residential areas were relatively small, and new areas expanded around existing areas by lengthening existing streets. There were no government requirements for developers. developer companies essentially did not exist. At that time, only buildings in the central parts of the city were strictly regulated to preserve beauty.

2. Companies sold land for individual construction, and after buying a plot of land, the owner himself ordered a house for himself from any construction company. After a while, it became clear to companies selling land that it would be much more profitable to sell land in areas with ready-made infrastructure instead of individual plots. This is how the term "district construction" was born.

3. Some of the first districts of this type were built in 1927 by two independent companies under the direction of two architects - E. Boston, near the city of Baltimore, and D. Nicholas, in the suburbs of Kansas City.

4. The districts numbered about 6,000 houses, with a population of 35,000. Because the development area in both cases was very large-scale, then the developer had to solve a number of new issues on the construction of the complete infrastructure of the area in the form of schools, shops, nearby office buildings. In this case, just technical and communication lines were not enough, and then the architects decide to introduce the first standards for the development of sleeping areas.

5. Thus, several associations of architects and builders were born, which today regulate most aspects of the construction of residential areas, namely the National Urban Planning Association and the American Institute of Urban Development. In addition to regulations and laws regarding building standards, the associations helped new companies create designs and layouts, which helped in many ways to potential buyers, because the companies began to provide a master plan for the development of buyers.

6. But with the advent of the economic depression, the issue of building residential areas was temporarily frozen: most people found themselves in a situation of no money. The issues of further improving the areas had to be temporarily postponed until better times. President G. Hoover in 1929 began to convene hearings on the housing issue, at the very moment when the depression was just beginning, and construction companies began to hastily freeze construction projects due to the insolvency of the population. But before the arrival of F. Roosevelt in the administration, no cardinal laws had been adopted.

7. At that time, houses were bought by the owners immediately, so only rich and well-to-do people could afford to live in residential areas, even the middle class could not afford such a life. Between 1910 and the mid-1920s, banks lent private mortgages to individuals with good solvency for periods ranging from 2 to 5 years, but such loans were still "expensive" for the middle class. Although it is worth noting that the first massive attempts to lend money to the population were made already in 1932 after the government adopted the law on loans for private real estate.

8. Already by 1933, due to insolvency, houses received on loans in 1932 were abandoned by the owners at a rate of about 1,000 per day. It is not surprising that President F. Roosevelt, when he came to the White House, saw one of the components of economic recovery in providing the population with good housing. The presidential administration said: if people are happy at home, then they will be happy at work.

9. Therefore, on June 27, 1934, the government, signed by the President, adopts one of the most important laws for the construction of residential areas - the Federal Act of Lending to the Population for the Purchase of Private Real Estate.

10. For the first time in the history of the country, homeowners were able to protect their mortgages from rising or falling prices by 80%, and the loan itself was issued by the government for a period of 15 years at 5% per annum.

11. The program itself lasted 3 years, but it is in these three years that the middle class population for the first time gets the opportunity to buy a house in the suburbs, there is a surge in the construction of residential areas. It was during this period that the term "American Dream" was born.

12. By the third year of the program's existence, the interest rate was reduced to 3%, and the loan term was increased to 20-25 years, and those who received a loan at a higher rate could undergo refinancing.

13. The next stage of the intensification of construction falls on the period of the Second World War, when its participants gradually began to return, to whom the state provided not only assistance in the form of various subsidies, but also provided them with good work. War veterans have always been hired first. By the way, this principle remains valid today. The construction of homes for military personnel accelerated even more after the 1944 Veteran Assistance Act, or the so-called “Rights of the Military Personnel” Act, which guaranteed a low-interest mortgage from the state for buying real estate upon expiration of an army contract and dismissal of military personnel.

14. The first massive neighborhoods with complete infrastructure begin to thrive in California, where 2,300 homes were built for war veterans between 1941 and 1944.

15. At this time, companies begin to build districts in the already familiar layout today, with parks, office buildings, schools, shops, kindergartens.

16. The sleeping areas are no longer districts, but are becoming independent municipal units with their own names, postal codes, telephone codes. Most of the population of such areas work within the city, but part of the population gets jobs directly inside such areas. Small businesses are starting to spread from the center of cities to their outskirts, which further enhances the development of residential areas.

17. At the same time, the requirements for the use of land begin to tighten, the first such laws were adopted back in 1909. The purpose of the adoption of laws was reduced primarily to keeping the sleeping areas clean and tidy. For example, factories were forbidden to be located within a radius of 20 km from residential areas. The buffer zone was office buildings or warehouses, as well as chain stores.

18. With the adoption of laws to regulate land use, builders returned to the issue of revising the design of sleeping areas and creating coziness and beauty inside them, not only in the form of park zones, but also in the form of improving the design of houses and planning streets, creating artificial reservoirs and recreation areas.

19. In the next part I will tell you about the evolution of sleeping areas based on the evolution of the US transportation systems, and then, we will talk about the design and layout of sleeping areas.

The photographs show one of the suburbs of Houston.

With the beginning of the industrialization of the United States, many families began to migrate to the suburbs. This was due to two factors: firstly, large leading cities turned into industrial and busy giants, many residents became uncomfortable to live among noise and industry. Second, there was Ford and the roads, which erased dependence on public transport and the need for housing near work. A romantic quiet suburb with a private house, surrounded by silence and greenery, has become for many a dream and a picture of an ideal life, an “American dream”.

1. By the way, long before the appearance of cars in large numbers and roads, in the mid-1800s, there were already some sketches of architecture and planning of sleeping areas. One of the first works in the United States on this topic was a book by Andrew Downing entitled "A Course in Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardens." In this book, Andrew described the layout and layout of the sleeping areas, with illustrations and many small details, such as how to plant trees or how streets should be laid out. But this work itself was not the first in this area, in Great Britain, by that time, there were already quite a lot of both architectural and engineering essays and books on this topic. Although the idea itself was not new at all, the first suburban area was built in Brooklyn back in 1819. On the 60-acre land, there were several straight alleys, 50 feet by 100 feet. By the way, the 50-foot plot is still one of the most popular in the private housing market today, along with 55 and 60-foot plots.

2. The value of this book was that Andrew showed to the common people (and not just architects and engineers) that the house "from the picture", which many dreamed of, can be not only for very wealthy people, but also for middle class. In the next few decades, this idea will go deep into the masses. By 1869, one of the largest suburbs of Brooklyn had emerged, with 500 acres of land divided into similar plots. The area was named "Garden City". Small houses were located on straight streets, the area was already planted with mature trees, there were gardens, paths for walking and other little things of a fabulous life. From that moment on, such a layout began to spread beyond the borders of New England. In 1907, a similarly planned neighborhood appeared in Kansas called the Village Club. But in these areas there was one problem - straight sleeping streets created a sense of life on a busy avenue, taking away the coziness of a village house. The solution to the problem was in the air, very close.

3. By the 1890s, the idea of a private house somewhere in the woods among mosquitoes completely disappears among the masses. The old principles were replaced by the idea of planning sleeping suburbs and building them with complete infrastructure and upgrading. This is how one of the areas built in 1884 in St. Louis, Missouri looked like. The presence of straight streets is not the best solution for a sleeping area.

(Lithograph by Gast, courtesy Missouri Historical Society, neg. 21508)

4. And this is a more advanced area, with a modern layout - construction began in 1869 in the state of Illinois, in the suburbs of Chicago. Let's dwell on this area in more detail, because it was the first mass development of the area in its modern form; today's layout is not much different from this area. In fact, this is not quite the first advanced area. Back in 1851, in Ohio, a small test area with curved streets was built, which was named Glendale. Nonetheless, the Chicago suburban area was the first large metropolitan area with sophisticated development planned to today's standard. Firstly, during the construction on the site of the dense forest, only the areas necessary for construction were cut, which left a large number of old trees untouched. On top of that, the area had hills and a nearby river that gave the area a great view. Secondly, the entire area had a mass of curved streets, which created a sense of seclusion, and thirdly, all parcels of land were divided into unconventional, uneven "chunks". This approach removed the geometry and the feeling of living along the ruler. And finally, fourthly, the design of the houses was made individually, and the houses did not repeat each other as a carbon copy. The area's chief architect was Frederick Olmsted, and his designs in the United States will include more than 450 similar neighborhoods in 29 states in the future.

This is how the area looked, the gray unpainted area at the bottom of the area is the river.

(Plan courtesy Frederick Law Olmsted National Historical Site; photo courtesy National Historic Landmarks Survey)

5. By the early 1930s, the direction of architecture and planning of suburban areas was completely formed not in theory, but on paper, in the form of various first codes and standards, as well as books: access roads from expressways to sleeping streets, cut off by a series of shops, curved quiet sleeping streets, with a large number of dead-end streets (to cut off the transit flow of cars), open spaces with trees and water bodies, houses with an open facade and individual architecture, but the same style and materials.

6. The 1934 National Home Owners Act put an end to the deal. This act established the Federal Homeowners Administration. It was necessary to get out of the depression, and above all to provide people with housing. To this end, the government established rules and laws regarding the financing of private individuals when buying a home, real estate appraisal, loans and private investment in real estate, established rules for the construction of private sectors, and requirements for the insurance obligation for private housing, and the administration looked after all this economy. Steward Mott, one of the most experienced and talented landscape architects, became the head of administration. From that moment on, private companies had to apply to the administration for approval of a plan for the construction of new areas. In turn, the administration has established strict requirements for the planning of districts, forcing companies not only to stamp houses, but to create beautiful districts with complete improvement. From 1936 to 1940, the administration issued a number of ryaikods, to which all development companies were required to obey. Let's take a look at the main points of these tutorials regarding architecture that are valid to this day (with minor amendments).

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1. Private areas should be located in places suitable for living without harm to health (we are talking about the fact that, for example, there is no way to build a district next to a metallurgical plant).

2. Areas should be located in places suitable for habitation, with minimal risk to the life of the population (this implies that you should not build areas in places of constant hurricanes, in flood or smog zones, eggey, hello Louisiana and Kansas).

3. Each district should have a complete infrastructure for the population (schools, kindergartens, hospitals, roads, public transport, etc.).

4. The construction of all necessary industrial infrastructure should be included in the area (treatment facilities, sewerage, drainage channels for the removal of heavy rains, etc.).

5. Submission to the zoning of cities, ie. you cannot stand where the land was intended for something else, such as shopping centers, office buildings, etc.

6. Protection of pricing, i.e. houses should be built according to a single plan so that their price line is approximately the same, without significant deviations. For this, various laws have been adopted, for example, on the size of the plots, the indentation from the edge of the plot (i.e., a large house cannot be built on a plot of 55 feet, due to the fact that it will not fit due to indentation), the quality and type of materials.

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7. A complete financial plan for the operation of the area - ie. the developer must coordinate all financial expenses for the maintenance of the area with the city to which the area will be leased. This includes the costs of maintaining the area, maintaining all infrastructures, costs of repairs, costs of industries that do not generate direct income, such as playgrounds and sports grounds, or the maintenance of beautification. Based on these calculations, the tax on residence in the area and the rise in house prices were calculated. By the way, for those who do not know, each owner of a private house pays taxes annually to each local administration. Today's taxes in Houston range from 3 to 5% of the appraised value of a home. Those. if your home is valued at $ 500,000 by today's market, then your annual tax will average $ 15,000. This money goes to the maintenance of the area, schools, road repairs, etc. I will talk about the financial side and the appraisal of houses later.

8. The standard also includes calculations for the construction of roads, the number of their lanes, the architecture of roads, curves, ups and downs, the size of blocks, the presence of parks and sports grounds, irrigation of the area, sewerage, electricity, etc.

9. This is the kind of mess the newly-made administration has made in just a couple of years. Now builders could receive more favorable investment conditions, many construction problems and coordination with between the city authorities and builders were resolved. On top of that, Mott was able to push the federal government to pass laws on curved streets. Let me remind you that since the construction of New York, engineers fell in love with the ruler very much, and had no idea that there was still such a thing as a compass. Thus, everything that could be done directly was done directly, and the curved streets were perceived as a sensation and a breakthrough into the future. In fact, curved streets have many advantages over straight streets, firstly, as I mentioned above, they create a cozy atmosphere and take away the feeling of being on a busy street. Secondly, curved streets are much more suitable in areas with relief, because The slope angles of the slopes of the roads can be controlled by bending around the hills. Thirdly, curved streets reduced the cost of building communications and roads in places with relief. Finally, they created safer traffic, because the number of intersections in dormitory areas has dropped sharply, and the driver's attention increases while driving. Beginning in 1940, curved roads were legalized, and now they are also one of the requirements for the design of sleeping areas.