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Well, I thought I would get a general idea of what your ideal living arrangement would be. Are you a suburban type person? Do you want to live in a high rise with a great view? Do you like town homes with a urban feel to them? Or do you like the rural lifestyle?
Mine is a town home in a wonderful are of a city. I don't care about a yard (although a deck in the back wouldn't be bad. I like some character to the house and hardwood floors is a must. Also, I personally like the brick, traditional look although a Victorian style older home wouldn't be bad either.
irwin--I really liked your picture #1--that's definitely more my style than #2. Where is #1, is it DC?
I like the arrangement I have, too. It's a 1930s house with a small city lot. We and most neighbors have done lots of planting on our lots. We have alleys on most blocks in the neighborhood, and the city plants and maintains boulevard trees on each street, making nice shady sidewalks. The canopy is so thick that unless it is absolutely pouring, I don't get wet when walking the 2 1/2 blocks home from the bus stop after work on rainy afternoons.
I just like a nice house in the suburbs. Character doesn't matter, "charm" doesn't matter. A nice, newer home preferably 2400-2800 sq. ft. with a patio and a VIEW! I need a view of something as long as it's not of a bunch of buildings. I don't want a view of a bunch of high-rises, I'd much rather have a view of the mountains or a golf course; ANYTHING as long as I'm not looking a buildings.
Pic #1 definitely looks like DC. I would choose that sort of home in a flash over anything else.
For whatever reason though, when I hear "townhouse", I think of suburban developments with names like "Evergreen Mill", whereas I tend to classify urban townhouses like those pictures as "rowhouses". I'm not sure if there's an actual difference though.
I would arrange my choices as:
1) Townhouse - but only in the urban sense
2) High rise condo
3) House in the burbs - it'd have to be a home with some character, perhaps in an older suburb though, not like the pic #2
4) Rural ranch - mostly due to the fact that I wouldn't want to live in a rural area period
First one is definitely Washington. I believe it is just off Dupont.
As far as the difference between a townhome and a rowhome; well...I would use the term townhome for any home in the city that is not a traditional ranch style home like our very unloved #2 picture. Normally I think of rowhomes as sharing a walls (like those in the picture), then you have semi-detached, etc.
I don't like these as much but I would definitely consider them townhomes.
Here's one in Atlanta I like a lot.
http://images4.gabriels.net/atlanta/fmls/photos/3448091_0.jpg (broken link)
I think it's more of a townhome rather than a rowhouse.
So much better when you don't have a big ugly garage on the front. Why in the world did they start designing houses like that?
dullnboring--
"I think of suburban developments with names like "Evergreen Mill"..."
Just an aside, but have you ever noticed how developers name their projects after the feature(s) they have decimated? A place called Evergreen Mill would be built at the site of an old mill in the midst of a pine forest. Only the developer would've demolished the mill, clear cut the forest and in its place put "townhouses" perched at the edge of a vast bleak parking lot, whose entrance (cars only please) is marked by a brick "gate" with a cheesy image of a waterwheel on it surrounded by a few six-foot perfectly coiffed arborvitae.
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Good one, irwin! But unfortunately, I think Speedy is right. In large segments of American culture, convenience trumps aesthetics every time. 
