Quote:
Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown
As Londonee says, I'm not sure why the hate for Philly rowhomes. Virtually everything, at least in and around Center City Philadelphia is a rowhome. A rowhouse can be a 10,000 square foot mansion with elevators or a 600 square foot trinity with a basement kitchen. The beautiful thing about Philadelphia in particular is that very often they sit side by side and most passer-bys wouldn't even know it.
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Philly rowhouses are great, urbanistically. Fantastic from the street. Basically as good as it gets in the U.S. from the pedestrian perspective.
But, excepting a few fancy neighborhoods, they're far from ideal for how people live today. Most of these rowhouses are extremely narrow, spartan, tiny and dark, with extremely modest proportions and ceiling heights. They were built for very working class families.
Even the generally much grander Brooklyn brownstones are usually too dark and have too many stairs. I love them from the street, but would not live in one unless gut renovated with back blown out with glass walls (which is getting extremely common - unrenovated they're always too damn dark). And probably an elevator. But all that is serious $$.