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Anyone claiming that quarter-acre suburban lots aren't popular in California has either never been to California or they had their eyes closed the whole time. Newer developments seem to skew smaller but I still see a lot of lots that size in the high-end developments. Some of the newer projects in the "drive til you qualify" belt are smaller, as are urban infill lots.
Your mileage may vary. I have seen "skinny house" close-set row houses built to about 35 units per acre, typically spaced 3 feet apart and with a few feet of front yard and a built-in garage. The maximum density of single-family homes depends on much more than lot size: how wide are the streets? How tall can they be? What other uses are in the neighborhood?
One size does not fit all--the assumption that everyone wants a single-family home is inherently incorrect. Different family sizes, personal priorities and ability to pay means there is no perfect size. A mixture of housing types within a neighborhood (including mixed use buildings with residences above commercial/office) provides maximum choice and increases overall density without eliminating the option for a single-family house.
Sure, there are large lots in some places in California, but anyone who has spent time in LA in particular should realize that its single family living is, overall, more dense than what you find in many American suburbs. You've got to go a long way out before you start finding neighborhoods with large lots; the norm, even in many suburbs, is much denser than the average NE American city suburb. It's a different regional model than, say, NYC. The LA urbanized area is actually built at a higher density than New York, although obviously there is still plenty of room within the LA region to increase that density even further. It's just spread out in a different way, and its more suburban areas are built with a greater density than what you find in many other parts of the country.
That said, part of the reason there is so much density in many of these LA neighborhoods is because they have a blend of housing types. And besides the earlier-mentioned bungalow court models, single lots with several houses on them also seem to be very popular.
Go ahead. Don't accuse me of fabricating again, either.
Big lots are not the norm in CA, either, nor in some suburbs of Minneapolis. There's a whole world out there beyond NOVA and Brooklyn.
There are some truly hideous suburbs in the ultra-sprawling Twin Cities, including some with huge lots, but I would agree that the big lots are not the norm for the more modern developments. Drive around in the exurbs and you're just as likely to see large houses crammed onto small lots. I would NEVER call those areas models for successful single-family density, but I don't think quarter-acre lots are so common in modern developments. In those cases, I think the missing link is not so much density (although there's room to improve that, too), but rather the overall design of the roads, etc., and how everything connects to the whole. Right now there are a lot of relatively dense suburban neighborhoods where some of the potential benefits of having that kind of density aren't realized because the land use is itself still so segregated.
Also FWIW, in the Twin Cities (not sure how this compares to the rest of the country) the 1990s were a decade with a lot of low-density sprawl, while the 2000s new developments were much more compact. In addition, there was a strong movement away from single-family homes, with a lot more townhouses and other similar options built, even in the outer suburbs. So if we're talking "modern" maybe it also comes down to just how modern is modern.
I haven't read the entire thread, but has anybody pointed out that the standard Chicago lot is 25 x 125 ft = 3125 sq ft which works out to roughly 14 lots per acre.
The "bungalow belt" of Chicago is probably 90%+ SFH on the standard lot with scattered 2 flats mixed in. It looks like this from the air: chicago - Google Maps
This neighborhood packs in about 8000 ppsm although that includes some industrial areas and part of Midway airport.
The Midway area actually has 30 x 125 lots, like Berwyn. If each block is 1/8 mile (660 feet) long, and you knock off footage for the street and sidewalk, then you get 20 houses on a 600-foot block. 40 (20 on both sides of the street) x 128 blocks in a square mile is 5,120 houses per square mile.
With the 25 x 125 lots like you see closer to the Loop, that would give you 24 houses on a block instead of 20, so 6,144 houses per square mile.
ok... but land cost is still a fair bit less than overall construction costs.
According to your link, for a $377,000 single family home with 2700 sqft finished area on a 1/2 acre lot, the land cost is $76,600 and the total construction cost is $222,500 with the remaining $77,900 being profit, marketing, etc.
At least according to Google Maps' map scale, those Santa Maria lots are 60x100 feet--about 1/8 acre each. They look squeezed together because the houses are apparently pretty darn huge! If you plopped a 1000-1200 square foot ranch house on that house you'd have tons of yard--or a 100-1200 square foot bungalow on half that lot size and still have ample backyard space and a few feet of lawn in the front.
Which is exactly what we see in the Hollis, NY map nei posted: lot sizes look more like 40x80 feet, about half the lot size of the Santa Maria lot, but it doesn't look as cramped because the houses aren't as huge.
And when you zoom out you see even more differences: the Santa Maria neighborhood is cul-de-sac and feeder streets, which discourages walkability by making walking paths farther, and all the retail is clustered along a major street a mile away. Meanwhile, the Hollis, NY neighborhood has retail locations more closely located--and I note a heavy-rail public transit stop on the north end. Santa Maria has a couple bus routes within a mile or so of the point indicated by the link.
Sure, there are large lots in some places in California, but anyone who has spent time in LA in particular should realize that its single family living is, overall, more dense than what you find in many American suburbs. You've got to go a long way out before you start finding neighborhoods with large lots; the norm, even in many suburbs, is much denser than the average NE American city suburb. It's a different regional model than, say, NYC. The LA urbanized area is actually built at a higher density than New York, although obviously there is still plenty of room within the LA region to increase that density even further. It's just spread out in a different way, and its more suburban areas are built with a greater density than what you find in many other parts of the country.
That said, part of the reason there is so much density in many of these LA neighborhoods is because they have a blend of housing types. And besides the earlier-mentioned bungalow court models, single lots with several houses on them also seem to be very popular.
The parts of LA with those smaller lots are mostly pre-1930s "streetcar suburb" neighborhoods, which tended towards narrower lot sizes and higher densities. Bungalow courts are a type of multi-family housing, just often with detached, very small buildings rather than a single apartment building, and were built as rental apartments, so they don't really fit the model of "single-family home" we're talking about.
Keep in mind we're talking about suburban single-family homes here, so pre-1920s streetcar suburbs in Los Angeles proper or Chicago proper aren't really the subject at hand: most of California's housing stock has been built since World War II (1940 population 7 million--2010 population 37 million!) so you really need to look at the postwar housing stock in the suburbs. There's more of it, it's all over the darn place, and that housing stock tended to be on bigger lots (generally the canonical quarter-acre), with broader housing styles. The nearly universal California ranch home was very dominant here--unlike the narrow Craftsman bungalow intended for deep lots with minimal frontage and small front yard, the ranch house is broader than it is deep, with a deeper setback for a big front yard and another in back. Modernist suburban homes also got much favor in California, where you don't have to shovel snow off the Modern-style flat roof, and warm winters don't deter you from having lots of glass (and air conditioning, if you could afford it, would mitigate the effects of heat.) Their emphasis on horizontal lines, heavy-duty landscaping and room for a couple big 1950s cars in front required big lots!
Keep in mind we're talking about suburban single-family homes here, so pre-1920s streetcar suburbs in Los Angeles proper or Chicago proper aren't really the subject at hand
They're not? I thought the subject on hand was the densest a single-family home neighborhood could be. Which is why I posted one from NYC proper (and other places).
What I don't get is those mini-lots in exurbs. In some of the new developments here they tried to do a fair amount of mixed construction (as in size, never you worry it's all 100% residential and all looks exactly the same). You've got things ranging from 2400 sq ft on a 2,600 square foot lot to 1500 on a 4,000 square foot lot to 3,000 on 6000-8000 lots to empty lots for spec construction in the 10,000 to 15,000 range. There's a 1/4 acre plot for sale now for $55,000. In other words, land is cheap.
Who the hell wants to be squished in like a giant sardine in a tiny lot in the suburbs? I just don't get that. I'll take a 1,500 square foot home on a quarter acre lot over one of these new development sardine houses with 1/8th acre (or smaller) lots and huge houses any day. I mean, we're talking suburbs here... it's not like you're getting any benefit to living like a sardine and land is cheap so why not spread out a little? You're down the street from the same sized house that has a yard and doesn't have to hear his neighbors fighting over the shower every morning. There's even a real risk of something green and growing being between the window and the ugly stucco exterior of the house that's most all you can see out the window. And what are you getting for all that? You're still 4 miles from the nearest grocery store (at least until they finish building the super wally world) and the only commercial activity is in one of those big-box XXXL strip malls. I do enjoy living in denser areas... but I like it because there's a very real danger of accidentally tripping and ending up in the local bar for a few hours on the way home. I just don't get the appeal of sardine construction in sleepy suburbs...
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