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The trend didn't reverse itself in the Northeast. Different regions were following different patterns.
Yeah. Look at the stats for RI and CT. It dropped off by 10-12 percent between 1950 and 1960. While it showed modest upticks after 1960, the percentage of single-home dwellers remained a majority. In NY, the trend has actually been on a steady decrease from 32% in 1940 to 42% single-family dwellers today.
DC has stayed flat at 13%.
NY is really the outlier going from a whopping 38.9% detached in 1960 to 41% in 2000. Then again it was also 32.6% in 1950. It's really the only state that hasn't stayed flat or reversed in the Northeast. Regardless, in no case do you see anything like the 5-10% shift that occurred from the 50-60s.
The "tipping point" was really a short-term housing crunch. It wasn't a tipping point at all, even in the Northeast or even in New York. An example of tipping point is white flight where the white people stay until that one too many black families moves in at which time a huge number flee in short succession. New York 32.6 > 41% > 43% in 30 years is not a tipping point, and it's the best data point to defend the 50-60s change as such. Naturally the short-term housing crunch looked different in the much less developed rest of the country (including the Northeast) than in the developed parts of the Northeast.
What is going to kill suburbia isn't our ability to continue it ad infinitum but rather our inability and unwillingness to pay for it....... because, frankly, the only thing that Americans hate more than being limited in their choices is having to actually pay for them.
About 38 percent of Americans lived in "attached" housing in 1950. A majority of residents of most Northeastern states lived in either townhomes or apartments in 1950 (these are statewide statistics, so this would include some of the smaller cities). The tipping point happened in the 1950s as only the District of Columbia showed a majority of residents living in apartments/townhomes in 1960. In 2000, NY and DC were the only two with majorities living in apartments or townhomes. In between, Nevada and Florida showed majority apartments at different points and most of the Northeastern states hovered around 50-60% in single-family homes.
What I thought was interesting looking at the 1950 numbers is that while most of the urban NE states had a low % of detached of homes but the distribution of multifamily homes was different.
Pennyslvania, DC, Delaware and Maryland have a high percentage of housing units in single family attached units; mostly row homes; NY and the New England states (NY had a mix of small and large apartment buildings while MA/RI/CT had more small apartment buildings) had few in single family attached. NJ was a bit in between. The small apartment buildings can include a 2 family house where each floor is an apartment or the typical New England "triple decker". Most of the places I've lived in Massachusetts go under the small apartment building category.
So the mid-Atlantic states (DC, MD, DE & PA) were row house urban states while NY, New England and NJ weren't so much.
About 38 percent of Americans lived in "attached" housing in 1950. A majority of residents of most Northeastern states lived in either townhomes or apartments in 1950 (these are statewide statistics, so this would include some of the smaller cities). The tipping point happened in the 1950s as only the District of Columbia showed a majority of residents living in apartments/townhomes in 1960. In 2000, NY and DC were the only two with majorities living in apartments or townhomes. In between, Nevada and Florida showed majority apartments at different points and most of the Northeastern states hovered around 50-60% in single-family homes.
I'm not at all surprised that a majority of people did not live in detached housing, in the NE. But, I wonder how many of those dwellings were small, "cold water flats, and worse," especially by the 40's and 50's?
I'm not at all surprised that a majority of people did not live in detached housing, in the NE. But, I wonder how many of those dwellings were small, "cold water flats, and worse," especially by the 40's and 50's?
OK, just "guessing" here, but call it an educated guess. I'd say by the 50s, probably few were, but before WW II, probably a lot were. Out on the farms, before WW II, a lot of people had no running water or electricity.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 02-27-2012 at 09:08 AM..
In India, cold water flats are common even among the well off. The locals consider it a minor nuisance since 10 months of the year the "cold" water is warm enough anyway without heating! Some have a personal electric water heater, but they often don't use it even in the cool season. No one owns a heater...
I visited someone whose family lived / owned a brownstone (row house) in Brooklyn. His dad looked up on the history of the area and said the oldest row houses in the neighborhood were originally built (1860) without running water and had outhouses in the small backyard behind. His was newer (1880) and running water was built in.
The current population density is about 52,000 people per square mile, and most of the buildings are the original so it's probably was the same density when it was new. Outhouses at that density must have been a sanitation issue.
Brooklyn was very much a suburb at the time. Outhouses were a sanitation issue in every city and town, for the wealthy and the poor, as was manure in the streets, as flush toilets were unknown at the time (the first public flush toilet was at the Crystal Palace in London in the 1850s--high tech stuff!) The Civil War era produced the first "Sanitary Commissions," the beginnings of social reform movements that encouraged things like paved streets, sewers, municipal water supplies, flush toilets, regular bathing and the use of soap, etcetera, in the late 19th century.
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