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Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

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Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#21

Post by throw8383833jj »

For some reason the vast majority of houses are ugly for the following reasons: the proportions are off.

I mean, I understand the need to have smaller lots. But, if you're going to have a small 3K sq ft lot then you need to limit the width of the house to allow at least 20' on each side and raise the height of the house to two stories, if it's more than 800 sq ft.

Another big reason for ugliness is the extremely shallow and underdefined rooflines typical of ranch house style. You need to have steep well defined rooflines that give the house shape. And add a small stone tower off to the side to make it look even better.

Another big problem is the 2 or 3 car garages which always have to be immediately infront of the house which makes it look like you'r coming home to a parking garage and not a home. Put the garage in the back, where it belongs and have a 6' wide small driveway with nicely paved bricks.

Another even bigger problem is the propensity of people to put down pavement EVERYWHERE. the driveways are insanely big. the streets are waaay to wide. and then if that's not enough, they fill up the backyard with pavement too. If you take an arial shot, you'll notice almost half the lot is filled up with pavement: talk about ugly.

And, there's no trees. Why? it doesn't cost much to put down some trees. it makes the neighborhood so much more beautiful and even decreases the temperatures in the summer. you could even make them fruit trees so people can get free food.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#22

Post by Loughla »

kfprt wrote: post #6

Unfortunately this plague of bland boxes has come to my neighborhood. Internal volume is more valued than neighborhood aesthetics. It seems there's a correlation between these boxes and people never leaving the house but to work.

So my spouse and I built a 'bland box'. We did it for simplicity and practicality sake. Few breaks to the roof line = few opportunities for my roof to leak in 40 years. Simple design with a smaller footprint = more money available for high quality materials in the walls, floors, and ceilings. Tan siding because it's cheap and easy for me to fix on my own when it gets broken. Dark brown shingles because they will fade to light brown over their life and still look okay instead of needing to be replaced in the first 10 years of their 30 year life.

Just saying, some people do these things for different reasons.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#23

Post by quesera »

iammisc wrote: post #13

We've lost all sense of aesthetics as something that exists outside an individual's mind. Aesthetics used to be an independent study of philosophers for millenia, until our modern age decided that all aesthetics are equally good. This fundamentally has to do with the embrace of relativism at all levels of society. This is going to be controversial, but in the west, the ultimate cause of the decline in objective beaut…

> This fundamentally has to do with the embrace of relativism at all levels of society.

Oh, dear Dog.

That's a cliched reframing of decades of social change. Which is the deeper rejection of the Almighty? Strip malls or McMansions? Skyscrapers or Tiny Homes?

If you start with a narrative, and squint hard enough, anything can be about Relativism. It usually isn't though.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#24

Post by smileysteve »

jedberg wrote: post #3

> That is why the increasing cost of craftsmanship, while real, cannot account for the decline of neighborhood beauty. It's not the cost, it's the availability. I'm currently in the process of a home renovation. If you want a master craftsman to build you say, kitchen cabinets, you may have to wait years for them to be available. Or you can go to the store and buy custom built cabinets from a factory and have them in…

Or you can buy Ikea cabinets and have whatever quality you build (+ better hinges than prebuilt)

Plus

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#26

Post by handmodel »

kfprt wrote: post #6

Unfortunately this plague of bland boxes has come to my neighborhood. Internal volume is more valued than neighborhood aesthetics. It seems there's a correlation between these boxes and people never leaving the house but to work.

I agree a lot of the balance has shifted this way but I don't see this as bad.

When you are very wealthy you can have both but for those without that much money I don't blame anyone for choosing functionality over the aesthetics of a neighborhood. It seems rather insane to me to insist that your neighbor must increase their budget 20 or 40 percent (perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars) just so your house can be a couple percentage points more desirable.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#28

Post by kansface »

zwieback wrote: post #15

Buried in the article is an important point: people care a lot about interior and not much about exterior appearance. Typical cookie-cutter suburban neighborhoods are built assuming nobody walks around in them anyway. On the inside these houses are pretty deluxe, though. Also, in the US it's very difficult to build a house out of solid wood like my house from 40s. New materials might not look as nice but are less was…

I’d strongly disagree about people caring about interiors - houses are built and sold as a list of checkboxes as if they were enterprise software. They have the commensurate problems of enterprise software. Also, I’ll note that maybe only 10% of US houses are designed by an architect in the first place. Developers think in dollars, first, second, and third. They may upgrade your countertop to granite, but that’s the extent of it.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#29

Post by kfprt »

Loughla wrote: post #22
kfprt wrote: post #6

Unfortunately this plague of bland boxes has come to my neighborhood. Internal volume is more valued than neighborhood aesthetics. It seems there's a correlation between these boxes and people never leaving the house but to work.

So my spouse and I built a 'bland box'. We did it for simplicity and practicality sake. Few breaks to the roof line = few opportunities for my roof to leak in 40 years. Simple design with a smaller footprint = more money available for high quality materials in the walls, floors, and ceilings. Tan siding because it's cheap and easy for me to fix on my own when it gets broken. Dark brown shingles because they will fade…

I think this very much reinforces my point. 100% focus on the structure itself (especially interior) and relatively zero on the neighborhood or exterior. In a word, atomized.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#30

Post by quesera »

throw8383833jj wrote: post #21

For some reason the vast majority of houses are ugly for the following reasons: the proportions are off. I mean, I understand the need to have smaller lots. But, if you're going to have a small 3K sq ft lot then you need to limit the width of the house to allow at least 20' on each side and raise the height of the house to two stories, if it's more than 800 sq ft. Another big reason for ugliness is the extremely shal…

> Another big reason for ugliness is the extremely shallow and underdefined rooflines typical of ranch house style. You need to have steep well defined rooflines that give the house shape.

These are clearly conservative preferences, not objective truths.

Like social conservatism, there are valuable learnings embodied (steep roofs shed water -- more important in some climates than others), but there is also a lot of fearful aversion to the unfamiliar (i.e. anything not traditional western European).

> And add a small stone tower off to the side to make it look even better.

I would never want to live in a structure that pretends to be a castle. Or, more generously, one that is a vague echo of a style that once served a purpose.

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