No Single-Family Home For Me
In February I’ll turn 42 years old. My first 21 years were in a single-family detached home — the house my parents had built while my mom was pregnant with me. That was in suburban Oklahoma City. Pretty basic, 3 bedrooms, 1-3/4 baths. All the houses in the subdivision were single family detached with garages out front. My dad wanted a 3-car garage but all the houses were required to have a 2-car garage — neither less or more, just two. My dad wanted the 3rd bay for use as a shop with his woodworking tools. We did have a driveway that would hold 9 cars (3 wide x 3 deep).
During the following 20 years I have lived in eight different dwelling units. All have been in multi-family or mixed-use structures. There were two in college and six since moving to St Louis in August of 1990. Since leaving my family home at age 21 I have not lived in a single-family home.
This is my second time living in an elevator building, the first time was on Lindell on the 8th floor. I’ve lived in four different four-unit buildings. One two-family building. One corner storefront. But no single-family detached house.
We all make housing choices for ourselves. Since I’ve been out on my own that deliberate choice has been a rejection of my parent’s generation ideal of the single family detached dwelling. Not that their is anything wrong with that. It is just not my cup of tea. If I were to but a single family detached home it would likely be on a street also containing two & four-family buildings and perhaps down the street from a 12 unit building and near some storefront spaces.
My Dad & Mom were born in 1929 & 1931, respectively. I’ve seen prior houses they lived in after they got married in 1949. All single family detached. I think my Dad lived in a small apartment for a year before my Mom graduated high school and they got married. Other than that they both lived their entire lives (78 & 75 years, respectively) in single family detached.
All my relatives live in single family homes. I’m sure some think I’ll do well enough to someday move to a detached house in the burbs.
No one housing form is better than the other — I make no judgment. It is just interesting what we choose when we have a choice.
I choose what is best for my family. That would include: safety, education, lot size, square footage, etc. We all don’t make “housing choices for ourselves.”
Decisions are often based on requirements. What reason would a single man with no kids ever need to live in a single family detached home? You don’t need multiple bedrooms, bathrooms, parking, etc for one person. The school district doesn’t even factor into the equation. You have chosen what is best for somebody living your life, that shouldn’t be a suprise to you. When I was single with no kids I lived in an apartment complex with a roommate within walking distance of restaruants and stores. If I still had no kids or wife I would probably still be living in a place like it. I don’t find it interesting, as you put it, but more practical. One day when the kids are gone (and maybe the wife, too, he he) I can ditch the single detached in the ‘burbs. Until then I don’t find it interesting, just the best choice for the requirements.
Steve, as a household of one, can make a unilateral choice. Most families make consensus choices – dictatorships rarely survive. The point isn’t the difference between “me” and “us”, it’s that there are options and that we all make choices. Many of us reject the models our parents chose. It’s one reason why styles go in and out of fashion. And definitions evolve over time. Some of the nicest and most-expensive new construction in Denver are duplexes ($600,000-$1 million +) simply because the zoning allows that level of density and the market supports it. And unlike Steve, I’ve always owned single-family homes, both as a single person and as a married one, because they give me the freedom to do more of what I want – I don’t need approval from a home owners association, on multiple aesthetic issues, just the building department, on basic life-safety ones.
I find the way we choose our dwellings or they choose us an interesting topic. And it all changes with age and circumstances.
As a young couple, we could afford a large flat in a great, urban neighborhood; a small house in South City–walkable, but not urban; or a big new house way out west. Our choice then was about lifestyle & ease of maintenance. Fifteen years and two kids later, we still live in the same place, but now it’s a choice based on security and isolation from allergens. Sometimes I’d like to have a house with off-street parking and a backyard, but mostly … I know why I live where I do, and I wouldn’t trade it. Even for “traditional families,” there is more than one way to live, although you wouldn’t know it from the hype.
Many single persons buy single family detached houses because the thought is that they are a good investment and will increase in value. Another reason is that there are not a lot of good multi-family options in many parts of the county. If you want to live in a multi-family, you are stuck living next to a major highway, and still not in walking distance of amenities.
I am now a single person with grown children. I moved from a single family detached in Maryland Heights to a multi-family condo building in St. Louis City. A good choice for me. However, I would not have chosen to move to a multi-family in Maryland Heights, because I would not want to live off a major highway and, as I mentioned, still not within walking distance of much.
Steve,
Your love for multiple family dwellings made me think….I was thinking you may like to buy my place. I live in a great garden style condo in SOCO. It comes complete with neighbors. They are fabulous,and nosy. No one will ever come into the building without you knowing about it. They may even collect your mail for you and put it on your mat! The day I got my new car they called the cops about a suspicious vehicle. Good looking out! I think I may buy a sigle fam in the city as soon as you buy this one.
I’m wondering if midwesterners or specifically St. Louisans would be interested in single family detached or semi-detached in a more compact setting like cohousing, without necessarily being mostly collective as cohousing usually is. Density, adjacencies, efficiency of land and other resource use is optimum in such an arrangement, and without the encumbrance of a common house (with collectively prepared and communally eaten meals), this housing development form has some real benefits for the rebuilding of urban neighborhoods.
I live in a single family house by myself now because after a decade of living next to rude, ignorant jerks throughout the country, I wanted to be able to live somewhere where I didn’t have to hear screaming, domestic violence and loud music constantly–as well as enduring all the pest infestations that boiled over from filthy neighbors. I still hear some noise, but living in a single family house in Tower Grove East is paradise compared to apartment buildings I lived in the past. I still live in an urban environment, know my neighbors and have the opportunity to walk safely to dozens of restaurants and businesses. To each his own, is my attitude.
Before we bought our current house we looked into several types of housing options. We were interested in a condo, for the sake of simplicity and the urban environments they are often in, but we also wanted some private outside space and 3 bedrooms to have space for kids in the future. We found that a large condo with a private balcony is not easy to come by and when they are available they are very expensive, significantly more than the single family house we decided on. With condo fees added this option was out of reach for us. Perhaps developers in St. Louis are overlooking the market of young families who want a condo in an urban place. The nation-wide trend is to move back to (or stay) in the city with kids and live in urban houses and condos.
What if the open green space were a commons, but the home was still a single family detached or semi-detached unit? What if an entire urban block or a large portion of a block was comprised of such units sharing a large, open common space?
My wife grew up in the single family home in the burbs. I however have lived in single family homes (st. charles city), two condos (st. peters and Miami, FL), on a ranch (foristell), a frat house (best place ever to reside!), seven apartments (st. louis city, county and Miami), and on a ship with 70 other guys (coast guard).
For my money, you can’t beat a city row house (currently in a third floor walk-up). Great urban spaces with parks and walkable neighborhoods without a lot of upkeep.
I appreciate that people head out to the boring suburban life, it keeps housing costs in the city down for me 🙂
W Kruse
OK, I feel good about where we live now: an older single family in southwest city, with a two family across the street along with a four family; up the street is a twelve family and in between early 1900’s SF homes. I grew up in the burbs- typical two story with a two car garage and evenly spaced grassy lawns. It was neat moving into a 1906 dormitory then an old house divided up into five apartments. Those boring apartments early after school led way to my first house with a yard so I could finally have my own dog. Now Oscar & his brother Louie have a different SFH with a fence and people all around. There are nice sidewalks to walk down and the shops & restaurants on Manchester to enjoy. I’m happy where we are now, but I am eager to move to a new chapter of dwelling experience. Ready for the smaller personal lots or one larger that several families share. Heck if my dogs can socialize at the dog park, then maybe we can socialize again with neighbors and share our amenities. We’ll still have our personal space and identity, but we’ll make use of residential open space most do not need all of the time.
Exactly.
I grew up in the city in old and historic houses. Most of my friends and those of my parents seemed to live in similar dwellings. I attended church and school in similarly old, neighborhood structures. Occasionally we would visit someone in a “new” (less than 20 yrs. old!) house in another locale, an experience that seemed exotic to me as a child: Where was the old wood and stained glass? Why were there no weird, vaguely creepy light fixtures overhead? Why no steep staircases? Why did the garage face the street? Where was the clank and hiss of radiator heat? How bizarre to see deer browsing in an enormous backyard. I did not look down on these homes or envy them, but I found them to be an interesting contrast. As a child, I found “new” refreshing and appealing. It wasn’t until I grew up that I really realized that only older structures could feel like home to me. My wife and I live in a large, 1904 two-family on a beautiful, historic street near Tower Grove Park. We share the whole building only with four cats, and though it’s a lot of space, we love having multiple, dedicated spaces with specific and different purposes. I could live in a smaller place, but never in one that was not, at least to some suitable degree, old. When I went house hunting, this was an easy criterion to meet, since I was looking exclusively in older city neighborhoods. It also had to be near a substantial park, with amenities and services available by foot, near reliable public transportation, in a neighborhood that offered interesting, eclectic atmosphere, on a block I viewed as stable and/or improving, and finally, within a certain price range. I was pleased to find my battered, old “dream house” in weeks.
An interesting letter to editor in today’s Post (what is left of it). A write writes in and comments about how he feels he is ‘urban’.
What is urban? I would almost dare say to most of these readers an urban person is one that resides in either the City of St. Louis, maybe the heart of St. Charles, perhaps even Clayton. Me? I’m a city resident so I would say I’m urban.
The writer: lives in Fenton. To me that is suburban.
Perhaps that is part of the problem. Do people in suburbs think of that as an urban experience on the same level as living in the heart of a thriving city?
Yes, unless the conversation is crime, then, they live on a different planet.
Being a city dweller nominally makes one “urban”, but there are shades of meaning to such a vague term. A person who lives in an apartment in the suburb of Clayton who also walks to work and uses public transportation may in a sense be more “urban” than someone who lives in a St. Louis Hills ranch and drives everywhere. Unfortunately, “urban” also has an ambiguously derogatory code-connotation which too often translates to: poverty, crime, decay, social dysfunction and/or specifically, nonwhite poverty, crime, decay, and social dysfunction. That’s tired ass bullshit typically put down by people who live between strip malls and cornfields and consider going downtown to a ball game a dicey urban adventure. Cities are concentrations of loosely connected communities that reflect the density of their built environment. Yeah, Detroit is “urban”, but Copenhagen and Montreal are probably more so in the most meaningful ways.
The city of St. Louis has a lot of neighborhoods, ok, maybe just a few, that arent really very urban if you ask me. Some of St. Louis Hills for example, like the area south of Chippewa and west of Jamieson seem very suburban to me. Sprawling ranch houses, wide lots, no sidewalks paralleling the street. To me thats suburban. Heck if you live in a house that backs up to River Des Peres you could almost call it rural. To say you live in an URBAN neighborhood I think it should be high density housing. If there are no multi family units all the houses should at least be close together with no driveways between them. Alleys in the back. Definately sidewalks along the streets so pedestrians can get around. Stores and businesses should be within walking distance. I guess to be urban, I think you should be able to get around and live life without a car if you choose to.
I am single and without children, but I enjoy loud music and private space to work on cars. I currently live in an exburban townhouse but intend to move to a house in the woods.
I have no intention of having children, but I do love the idea of being far away from humans.
…how urban.