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this reminds me of another ssue about the definition. can it be a row house if it is set back from the sidewalk?
Of course they can. Minor setbacks are a pretty common feature of rowhouses in places like DC and New York. This is often more a feature of their style, where the basement is half out of the ground, resulting in a very tall set of steps and a little "front yardlet" to its side. Still, I've seen them fenced in and landscaped - I've even seen a (very unhappy) Great Dane in one once.
Those are set back more than the norm, but they're pretty clearly rowhouses regardless.
I don't see which part of this is hard to define. Rowhouses are houses which are attached to other houses on both sides, forming a "row." Exceptions are corner units (which only have one party wall) and perhaps for areas like this, which were originally rows, but where most houses have been lost to to demolition.
New construction can also be rowhouses, of course. However, although the building of rowhouse style in suburban environments is common (as many people in the suburbs, particularly those without kids, desire less yard and outside space), AFAIK recent-style rowhouses don't actually comprise the majority of any recent suburban-style neighborhoods.
I think a lot of Toronto's inner city housing was built 1-3 homes at a time, where these groups of 1-3 houses are sometimes attached to each other, and sometimes attached to their neighbours, but it's rather random. In a lot of cases there are small gaps of 1-5 feet between the houses.
As for the suburbs, how big does a place have to be to be considered a neighbourhood?
I can see why there was mass vacancy. It looks like the rows were built in an isolated area surrounding areas of much lower density. It's pretty easy to see, once an area like that starts going downhill, mass blight and abandonment.
It's great they remained intact though. Pittsburgh would have torn them all down for sure.
I don't think there is an official bureau of standards that defines what a rowhouse or a townhouse is. There are detached row houses--often only separated by a few feet, but they're common on the west coast while row houses are not. And there are attached townhouses--in my neck of the woods a "townhome" apartment is a two-story building with apartments that have an upstairs and a downstairs with two party walls, instead of two floors of apartments with each apartment occupying only one floor.
I see a lot of townhouse/row house construction in recent "infill" projects--some are attached, others are separated by 2-3 feet, enough to make them legally separate for purposes of lot subdivision. Here are some examples:
"Sutter Brownstones" (note: not brownstones) townhouse condos, each front face on the street is the head of a row of townhouses that extends to the alley where the parking is located.
I don't think there is an official bureau of standards that defines what a rowhouse or a townhouse is. There are detached row houses--often only separated by a few feet, but they're common on the west coast while row houses are not. And there are attached townhouses--in my neck of the woods a "townhome" apartment is a two-story building with apartments that have an upstairs and a downstairs with two party walls, instead of two floors of apartments with each apartment occupying only one floor.
I agree with the bold. The def. of "townhouse" in my neck of the woods is the same as in your neck. Heck, I have a good friend who lived in a "townhouse" development in suburban DC that met the above definition as well. I think sometimes "townhouses" are just newer than row houses. Many such townhouses actually have a condominium form of ownership, but "condo", colloquially speaking, seems to mean an apartment that is owned by an individual.
Townhouses around here essentially refer to attached, ground oriented homes. They can be rental, condominium form or freehold. Although they are usually simply side by side, they are sometimes back to back and sometimes stacked too. They generally refer to newer homes, but it's not that clear cut, and they can be modest too. High-end townhouses are often called town manors by the real estate industry.
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