Things you like about Pittsburgh's many 'Two-Story Homes' over one-story homes? (neighborhoods, square footage)

[OniNoKen]

This is fascinating. Where I'm from, everything is one story with no basement, and most houses do not have garages, just car ports. If it did have a garage, that was used for storage. Even here in Pittsburgh, we have a single floor with a basement. Though that was more a function of what turned out to be the best deal/location when we were moving here. When we got here we were amazed at the number of multistory homes. No idea if we were right, but we figured with the smaller footprints, it let them have more square footage per house.

[hinsey86]

My dream house was a one story mid century modern ....but with a basement. But that changed when I found basically 4 story stone house in Beaver county. I still love a one story though.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by OniNoKen

This is fascinating. Where I'm from, everything is one story with no basement, and most houses do not have garages, just car ports. If it did have a garage, that was used for storage. Even here in Pittsburgh, we have a single floor with a basement. Though that was more a function of what turned out to be the best deal/location when we were moving here. When we got here we were amazed at the number of multistory homes. No idea if we were right, but we figured with the smaller footprints, it let them have more square footage per house.

In part, this is a function of age. Before 1945, I think very few one-story homes were built anywhere in the Northeastern or Midwestern U.S. Ranch-style homes became very popular in places in the 1950s and 1960s. Pittsburgh seems to have less even during this period though (the "bunker" style of house was most popular here) After 1980, ranch-style homes became unfashionable in the northern U.S., however, and things have gone back to two-story (although modern construction, given it's cheap as hell, seldom has anything more than a slab foundation and a crawlspace attic).

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by eschaton

In part, this is a function of age. Before 1945, I think very few one-story homes were built anywhere in the Northeastern or Midwestern U.S.

The exceptions to this are one story bungalows, and "shotgun" style houses. The shotgun homes are mostly a Southern thing, but even Pittsburgh has a fair number of one story bungalows; though nowhere near as many as I've seen in Ohio and Indiana.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by ferraris

The exceptions to this are one story bungalows, and "shotgun" style houses. The shotgun homes are mostly a Southern thing, but even Pittsburgh has a fair number of one story bungalows; though nowhere near as many as I've seen in Ohio and Indiana.

I've seen very few true one-story bungalows in Pittsburgh, although those 1 1/2 story Craftsmen-style houses are probably the single-most common housing typology in Pittsburgh and the inner suburbs. There's probably easily 5,000 essentially identical houses which look like this.

[fleetiebelle]

Originally Posted by eschaton

In part, this is a function of age. Before 1945, I think very few one-story homes were built anywhere in the Northeastern or Midwestern U.S. Ranch-style homes became very popular in places in the 1950s and 1960s. Pittsburgh seems to have less even during this period though (the "bunker" style of house was most popular here) After 1980, ranch-style homes became unfashionable in the northern U.S., however, and things have gone back to two-story (although modern construction, given it's cheap as hell, seldom has anything more than a slab foundation and a crawlspace attic.

I think what's interesting as well, is that houses used to be built to take advantage of climate issues, like understanding that heat rises, and directing warmth from the chimney, and window placement for cross-ventilation. Post-ubiquitous AC, you don't see much of that.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

I think what's interesting as well, is that houses used to be built to take advantage of climate issues, like understanding that heat rises, and directing warmth from the chimney, and window placement for cross-ventilation. Post-ubiquitous AC, you don't see much of that.

In general, construction styles in the U.S. lost all their regional characteristics and became steadily more nationalized as the 20th century plodded on. Really, the U.S. only has two styles left - generic, and faux-Spanish, with the difference mostly being they stick fake stucco on the latter rather than vinyl siding.

[Copanut]

2 plus story homes are nice, but when you hit a certain age, it's nice to be on one level. Tons of 1 story homes in the Great White North, not that many in the city. Other than patio home clusters, you rarely see splits, ranches, or multi-levels being built these days.

[grep]

Multi story homes take up much less area per square foot of interior space. Combine this with small lots for houses and possibly the addition of attached or semi-attached housing, and you can get a lot of density! In different neighborhoods you can see this general pattern with all manner variations: owner occupied vs rental houses; single family vs multi-units; small lawns vs porches vs stoops; modest houses vs more grand homes.

But in all cases, this density decreases the distance needed to travel to get to things, encourages local business that residents can walk to, and generally goes along with healthy public transit access and bikability (I'm simplifying things a lot here, but density matters a lot). Even those that still choose to drive will often be closer to work and play than those in more sparsely populated, sprawling areas. Not to mention that the cost of public infrastructure (sewers, roads, etc) and heating (in the case of conjoined housing) are greatly reduced on a per person basis because of the shorter distances involved and the shared walls, respectively.

All of these things add up to much less energy used, especially in the form of gasoline related to transportation. And considering the growing climate crisis and the severe economic and humanitarian toll that climate change has already been taking on us, I think it should be self-evident that we need to do everything we can to curb our energy consumption, because so much of it right now is directly tied to the use of fossil fuels.

I can only hope that as we become more conscious of these issues, more people will chose to live more efficiently, for all of our sakes.

[grep]

And as other posters noted, stairs are a nice way to stay active, but they can be a problem for the old and feeble.