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I'm amusing the Art Museum section row houses were built at the time for a more well off demographic? While the ones P London showed were more working class? It's possible the first two were roughly similar to the last view at one time, but the first two declined for whatever reason.
My favorite Philly area I've seen by residential housing is the area west and southwest of UPenn. Most aren't rowhouses though this block has 'em:
Location: East Central Pennsylvania/ Chicago for 6yrs.
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I think the answer is ......SF is UNIQUE in the west in many ways.
One is having its own style of Row Homes NOT COMMON in the rest of the West? Most posters discussed East Coast Row Homes. In many cities, well over half of its housing Stock. I brought in how the Midwest did far less, but gave some old stock examples they have and new ones built downtown.
What it comes down too is ....the Midwest and West DID NOT WANT Eastern style Rows right up to the sidewalks, as their main housing stock? As many pictured in the thread especially of Philly.
Instead... for example. Chicago got wider streets attached retail and apartments on main streets. With mostly single homes on front lawn streets in neighborhoods, with some 2-flats and 3-flats.
---- I give this older neighborhood not high end by far of Humboldt Park in Chicago......
What it comes down too is ....the Midwest and West DID NOT WANT Eastern style Rows right up to the sidewalks, as their main housing stock? As many pictured in the thread especially of Philly.
Instead... for example. Chicago got wider streets attached retail and apartments on main streets. With mostly single homes on front lawn streets in neighborhoods, with some 2-flats and 3-flats.
---- I give this older neighborhood not high end by far of Humboldt Park in Chicago......
As I've said in other threads, there were basically three forms of vernacular architecture which formed in the U.S. - New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern.
New England architectural traditions shifted away from British norms fairly early on. Brick housing was abandoned in favor of the plentiful wood available. Houses also became set back modestly from the property line on all sides, which again was rather unlike a traditional English village. This type of housing was taken by ethnic Yankees as they moved west, first through Upstate New York, and then through the entire upper Midwest. Boston has some brick rowhouses in its core, but shifted away from them earlier than most other major East Coast cities, as Nei noted. There are no rowhouse neighborhoods anywhere else in New England, and aside from a scattering in Chicago (mostly in Lincoln Park) few in the upper Midwest.
The South also turned away from brick and zero-setback early, although it had its own architectural flourishes, including elaborate porches due to the milder weather, and eventually inventing a single story vernacular house for workers (the "shotgun house"). The very old cities in the South, Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans have their share, but they are otherwise mostly absent. This is partially a function not only of housing style, but of age. At the time of the 1860 census New Orleans was the only city of more than 50,000 in the South. Southern urban cores were very, very small, and much of the original urban area has since been obliterated with the massive expansion of these cities in the 20th century - meaning in some cases they seem to go directly from Central Business District to suburban-style ranches.
In the Mid-Atlantic, however, English traditional housing styles stayed alive. Most rowhouses in the U.S. are found in a band roughly running from Albany down to Richmond. Here, at least within urban areas, brick construction stayed competitive - and in some cases dominant - and zero setbacks in urban settings remained the norm until the streetcar suburb era took off. Midlanders took this style west with them. Pittsburgh has rowhouses, as does Cincinnati (although the "detached rowhouse" style is more common there, as I noted). Columbus and Indianapolis were both originally rowhouse cities, but both these cities (especially the latter) demolished much of their original housing stock in urban renewal. The furthest west Mid-Atlantic townhouse styles spread is Saint Louis. Detached or semi-detached townhouses are more common, as in Cincinnati, but some houses would blend in fine in Philly.
SF was the first major city on the West Coast, pre-automobile and pre-highways, before Los Angeles was a city at all. Just about all other cities on the West Coast are post-automobile and post-highways.
Factually completely incorrect.
San Francisco isn't any older than dozens of cities. Sacramento is a few months old, Los Angeles a few weeks older.
The only reason those dates start in 1850 is because California wasn't part of the United States until 1850 and thus there aren't census records for earlier decades. New Helvetia (Sacramento) was established in 1839, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula (Los Angeles) in 1781, Yerba Buena (San Francisco) in 1776, Mission San Diego de Alcala (San Diego) in 1769. But all were pretty tiny places until the Gold Rush.
So, technically, San Francisco is five years older than Los Angeles, but it was just a remote Spanish colonial military outpost; there were about 50 people in Yerba Buena in 1839 when John Sutter showed up to found New Helvetia. Los Angeles had developed into a metropolis of 1500 people by that time, around 500 in San Diego. The Gold Rush changed all that--San Francisco turned into the biggest city on the West Coast overnight, with Sacramento the second-biggest until Los Angeles had its first real estate bubble in the late 1880s.
The comparably small population of Los Angeles and Sacramento before 1890 is further evidence of the point I was making upthread. The historic cores of these cities before the electric streetcar (which spurred a near nationwide movement to more detached housing) was comparably small. Presumably nearly all of these historic residential areas are either within the CBD today, or just outside it in an area which is either no longer residential, or has been rebuilt to a higher density.
Location: East Central Pennsylvania/ Chicago for 6yrs.
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San Francisco was virtually totally rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake? No doubt better then previously. What was unique though was to choose their variety of Row homes, all their own. Underneath garages included. But just before that was the Daniel Burnham plan for a new San Francisco. Daniel Burnham?s Twin Peaks Vision - Western Neighborhoods Project - San Francisco History His plan was seen ultimately as too expensive His plans lost in the earthquake.
Daniel Burnham also helped with plans for the National Mall in Washington DC.
Chicago also had a chance to completely rebuild better after the Great Fire of 1871. Daniel Burnham helped with their street grid and boulevards and Lakefront preserved for public use. They still look to his plan today.
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