Unique (or-semi-unique) vernacular housing styles in your city...

[deja vu]

Not my hometown, but it goes without saying that the stilt houses in Galveston (and elsewhere on the Gulf Coast), are quite interesting and unique to that region. Sometimes they are constructed this way from the start. Other times, it's a retrofit, to respond to increasing weather severity (I think the last photo is an example of the latter) -


Source: Vrbo


Source: airbnb


Source: Pinterest


Source: HAR

[Centropolis]

stilt houses have been common along the Mississippi River since at least the 40s. This one is just outside of St. Louis - theres full towns of them from Iowa (surely Minnesota too) to Louisiana.

ap.rdcpix.com

[Centropolis]

I think we are finding out that there are few truly unique housing styles in North America. it’s mostly a variation on a theme.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

I think we are finding out that there are few truly unique housing styles in North America. it’s mostly a variation on a theme.

Yeah, the visible styles of a city seem more influenced by the era when the city had significant development and population growth more than anything.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yeah, the visible styles of a city seem more influenced by the era when the city had significant development and population growth more than anything.

isolation + age seem to produce the biggest vernacular drift- see SF, NOLA, Charleston/Savannah, and smaller outposts like Ste. Genevieve and St. Augustine.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

isolation + age seem to produce the biggest vernacular drift- see SF, NOLA, Charleston/Savannah, and smaller outposts like Ste. Genevieve and St. Augustine.

Different colors and materials for sure, but San Francisco feels subtly similar to Chicago. I seem to be the only one that notices it though lol. I still stand by my assessment, and I support it with numbers. SF and Chicago had extremely similar growth trajectories.

SF vs Chicago - % of 1950 population
1850: 3% vs 1% (the two cities were roughly the same population this year)
1870: 19% vs 8%
1890: 39% vs 30%
1910: 54% vs 60%
1930: 82% vs 93%
1950: 100% vs 100%

And... the parallel continues quite a bit post-1950

1960: 95% vs 98%
1970: 92% vs 93%
1980: 88% vs 83%

But the cities start to diverge significantly after 1980. SF recovers to its peak by 2000, while Chicago has clearly struggled to pull out of the decline:

1990: 93% vs 77%
2000: 100% vs 80%
2010: 104% vs 74%

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Different colors and materials for sure, but San Francisco feels subtly similar to Chicago. I seem to be the only one that notices it though lol. I still stand by my assessment, and I support it with numbers. SF and Chicago had extremely similar growth trajectories.

SF vs Chicago - % of 1950 population
1850: 3% vs 1% (the two cities were roughly the same population this year)
1870: 19% vs 8%
1890: 39% vs 30%
1910: 54% vs 60%
1930: 82% vs 93%
1950: 100% vs 100%

And... the parallel continues quite a bit post-1950

1960: 95% vs 98%
1970: 92% vs 93%
1980: 88% vs 83%

But the cities start to diverge significantly after 1980. SF recovers to its peak by 2000, while Chicago has clearly struggled to pull out of the decline:

1990: 93% vs 77%
2000: 100% vs 80%
2010: 104% vs 74%

mmm…i’ve had this thought on like Armitage or something in the past, but the reverse hasn’t occured in SF. too many particularities and VIBES endemic to SF. they arent unrelated, however.





photos mine circa late 2019.

[The North One]

This type of terrace/rowhome seems to be unique to Detroit and Northeast Ohio. Usually built all together at the corner of a city block, they seem to always have a unique architecture style. Pretty common in city neighborhoods. I could be wrong but I haven't seen this anywhere else, I don't think they're a thing in Chicago.


https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...es/8061801002/

[muppet]

Before the modernist period London had distinctive tenement housing styles.

The Peabody Estates were one of the first social housing movements in the West. Distinctive streetwalls, yellow brick, minimal decoration, lots of small windows, and stripes. Some are now luxury conversions, others are still social housing - despite the good intentions, embarrassingly they bear striking similarities to Victorian prisons.


https://i1.wp.com/londontraveller.org



If not for the sloped rooves, many would look almost modernist.


www.erichall.eu


Then there are these art deco 'gems'. To this day they are still a sign of poverty and a dank home where sunlight fears to tread. Defined by brown brick, setback fronts, and horrible stairwells. And worst, the narrow walkways where people constantly squeeze past every window, so even more netting's put up and even less lighting gets through.


www.peabody.org.uk


Although historic, ugly AF. They can of course be luxed up by developers and trade hands for $1.3 million a pop, provided they're in the right area. The vast majority aren't, and clog up the East End and south of the river.




Large areas of West London also have street after street of art deco mansion blocks, that were de rigeur for the glitterati back in the day. Once again, a bit ugly imo - depressingly brown brick (the WORST colour for the British weather, yet almost ubiquitous for centuries), and not that many art deco features really. I'd call this the fine line between pared down art deco and modernism, and a relatively unique format to London.

[JManc]

Houston:

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by JManc

Houston:

Doesn’t Houston have an equivalent of Los Angeles’s Bungalow Courts? I recall an episode of maybe House Hunters where one of the options was a house on a pedestrian only street which was purpose built that way. The realtor said these used to be a common type of housing and that they were highly sought after.

As to the above:

Neo Art Deco?

Those are beautiful.

[Centropolis]

houston does have a unique contemporary style.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Doesn’t Houston have an equivalent of Los Angeles’s Bungalow Courts? I recall an episode of maybe House Hunters where one of the options was a house on a pedestrian only street which was purpose built that way. The realtor said these used to be a common type of housing and that they were highly sought after.

As to the above:

Neo Art Deco?

Those are beautiful.

Are you referring to garden apartments with maybe 20-25 units? They were pretty common inside the loop but many fell victim to rising property values and development.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Different colors and materials for sure, but San Francisco feels subtly similar to Chicago. I seem to be the only one that notices it though lol. I still stand by my assessment, and I support it with numbers. SF and Chicago had extremely similar growth trajectories.

SF vs Chicago - % of 1950 population
1850: 3% vs 1% (the two cities were roughly the same population this year)
1870: 19% vs 8%
1890: 39% vs 30%
1910: 54% vs 60%
1930: 82% vs 93%
1950: 100% vs 100%

And... the parallel continues quite a bit post-1950

1960: 95% vs 98%
1970: 92% vs 93%
1980: 88% vs 83%

But the cities start to diverge significantly after 1980. SF recovers to its peak by 2000, while Chicago has clearly struggled to pull out of the decline:

1990: 93% vs 77%
2000: 100% vs 80%
2010: 104% vs 74%

The numbers are interesting, but there's a reason you're the only one who subscribes to the idea that San Francisco's vernacular "feels similar" to Chicago's--because it's not notably so.

San Francisco obviously did not invent the form of wooden Victorian residential architecture. But, due to the spectacular wealth accumulated in the city from supplying and financing four decades of gold and silver rushes, the city's fanciful redwood Victorian homes are most notable for their opulence and rich, ornate detailing. New York banks financed Chicago's early development, and housing for the masses who would work the factories--the more the merrier--prioritized efficiency, relative simplicity, and affordability. After Chicago's great fire, masonry was generally preferred for reconstruction; masonry had totally failed San Francisco during its great earthquake, and was essentially banned from all of earthquake country. And despite the fire danger, SF didn't generally adopt alleys and breezeways as a model for reconstruction like Chicago did.

[Centropolis]

years ago i made a comparison between chicago and san francisco so i get it. they are like first cousins in a way thats hard to explain. theres a similar streetfeel at times.

after spending more time in the greater Bay Area than Chicagoland over the past few years i’ve deemphasized that since the REGIONS are so different.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

years ago i made a comparison between chicago and san francisco so i get it. they are like first cousins in a way thats hard to explain. theres a similar streetfeel at times.

after spending more time in the greater Bay Area than Chicagoland over the past few years i’ve deemphasized that since the REGIONS are so different.

Yeah, the non-core parts of the SF Bay Area feel completely different from non-core Chicago. I'm only talking about the city of San Francisco compared to the city of Chicago.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Different colors and materials for sure, but San Francisco feels subtly similar to Chicago. I seem to be the only one that notices it though lol. I still stand by my assessment, and I support it with numbers. SF and Chicago had extremely similar growth trajectories.

Actually, I recall riding with a busload of passengers from the AMTRAK California Zephyr (Chicago to SF) into the city--the train ride ends across the Bay in Emeryville and they bus people across the Bay Bridge into downtown--one time and there was a lot of comment about how much downtown SF reminded them of Chicago.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by craigs

San Francisco obviously did not invent the form of wooden Victorian residential architecture. But, due to the spectacular wealth accumulated in the city from supplying and financing four decades of gold and silver rushes, the city's fanciful redwood Victorian homes are most notable for their opulence and rich, ornate detailing.

Some of the versions of Victorian homes were purchasable from the Sears Roebuck (a Chicago firm) catalogue.


https://www.pinterest.com/pin/431149364298555768/

[Pedestrian]

Here's one that may be new to some of you: "Earthquake cottages".

These were built by the hundreds (? thousands) after the 1906 quake to house homeless San Franciscans:





Eventually quite a few of them became peoples' permanent homes:








All images: https://www.google.com/search?rls=en...Zrs7XlGl3J3R3M

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

years ago i made a comparison between chicago and san francisco so i get it. they are like first cousins in a way thats hard to explain. theres a similar streetfeel at times.

after spending more time in the greater Bay Area than Chicagoland over the past few years i’ve deemphasized that since the REGIONS are so different.

Hey, people feel what they feel. I think the differences between the two cityscapes are far more prominent than the similarities, but I'm a city geek who lived within San Francisco city proper for more than half of my lifetime so far.

Obviously, the two cities' respective topographies, climates, and demographics manifest in very different ways. And on a more granular level, San Francisco's wooden Victorian districts were built more opulently and are most notable for their filigree, and don't generally contain alleys, breezeways, or long strips of greenery between curbs and sidewalks--which means San Francisco has far fewer street trees. Also, Chicago's neighborhoods seem more separated from each other by linear barriers like railroads, as well as by single-use zones like industrial strips and long commercial-only strips that are rare in San Francisco.

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Some of the versions of Victorian homes were purchasable from the Sears Roebuck (a Chicago firm) catalogue.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/431149364298555768/

According to wikipedia, Sears Catalogue first began offering its kit homes in 1908--long after SF's Victorian vernacular was established.