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Mervalstubing Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 1	Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 10:29 pm    Post subject: track (tract) homes Track homes seem to be springing up everywhere. Does anyone have information about when and where this phenomenon started. Was it influenced by any architectural trends or based more on cost-efficiency? thank you much for any information that you can provide.
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SDR millennium club Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 1846 Location: San Francisco	Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 4:04 pm    Post subject: Perhaps you mean tract housing or tract homes? (Tract = continuous expanse of land) Following the Second World War, in America, the Levitt brothers, William and Alfred, built thousands of nearly identical 800 sq ft "Cape Cod-style" houses, on Long Island (New York State) and later in Pennsylvania. Levittown was the name given to both these developments. In 1952 it was estimated that these houses were being built at a cost of approximately $5000 each. The repetitive nature of the plans, and the large number of units produced, were the most significant factors in reducing the cost of these houses. (A Cape Cod house has a simple rectangular plan with a single gabled roof and, originally, a centered front door under a low eave; a kitchen addition at the rear sometimes resulted in a "salt-box" shape, with the additional shed roof a continuation of the main rear pitch.)
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JWmHarmon Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 127 Location: Ohio	Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 1:26 pm    Post subject: Levitt Town - Daly City, California http://www.levittownhistoricalsociety.org/index2.htm Here is the Levitttown Historical Society web site for those interested in a brief history. Daly City near San Francisco is a similar community. The houses and the life style of the 1950's was lampooned in the song "Little Boxes" Words and music by Malvina Reynolds. Copyright 1962, Schroder Music Company The song ridiculed the conformity of the 1950's era (remember this was shortly after World War 2) not only in architecture but also in lifestyles. http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/snd/littleboxes.html Similar style houses were common throughout many suburbs in the United States.
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nb Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 23 Location: new orleans	Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:22 am    Post subject: by the way what is a tract house? is it equivalent to that wretched urban sprawl?
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SDR millennium club Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 1846 Location: San Francisco	Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 12:01 pm    Post subject: A tract house is a house built as part of a "housing development" on a tract of land purchased for that purpose. Stylistically, such houses tended, originally, to be identical, or nearly so; later, more variety in appearance was gained by substituting exterior materials and/or colors, and by "flopping" (reversing) the floor plan and/or, occasionally, orienting the plan differently on the lot. Today, such developments seek to individualize the houses by providing (sometimes) extreme variations in exterior treatments.
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nb Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 23 Location: new orleans	Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 12:11 pm    Post subject: ah k; so somewhat of a step up from urban sprawl; less of an assimilation than urban sprawl
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SDR millennium club Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 1846 Location: San Francisco	Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 12:19 pm    Post subject: Well, I guess housing tracts would qualify as an aspect of suburban sprawl. American home-buyers have insisted on "detached" (individual, free-standing) houses rather than the "semi-detached" or "terraced" (British for duplex or row houses, respectively) almost without exception, despite the extra land and building material required.
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fairie Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 34 Location: Warner Robins, Georgia	Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 11:37 pm    Post subject: Very common... It is funny how much this spread, actually... There are examples of it all the way in South Carolina, which sprung up when the textile mill in Camden was doing really well and they wanted to build as many houses as they could close to the Mill... and as cheaply as they could... and there were many, many examples of it in New Jersey... They seemed to be trying to find a way to fit as much house and as many houses as possible on the skinny tracts of land... In the house we were renting in NJ, I could reach my hand out the window on the side of the house and touch the house on the other side (why even both with windows? Who would want the view of the siding on the house next door?) So, I think most people hate the idea, but what city can afford to tear down a historic district (so to speak) and rebuild farther apart and more uniquely? It is unfortunate that the new sub divisions are becoming so much the same as the tract housing was. The houses are diferentiated from each other slightly, but most of the time there are guidelines and rules in the lease or community agreement that require only so much variance in the appearance of your house from the others. Especially in exterior finishes... _________________ Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union. --FLW
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