UKIP poster boy is a racist immigrant, film at 11

[Admiral Yi]

What does "terraced housing" mean?

[Eddie Teach]

Townhouses.

[Admiral Yi]

That makes no sense.  Townhouses aren't built on terraces.

[Richard Hakluyt]

What does "terraced housing" mean?

From wikipedia :

"The practice of homes built uniformly to the property line began in the 16th century and became known as "row" houses. "Yarmouth Rows" in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk is an example where the building fronts uniformly ran right to the property line.

The term terrace was borrowed from garden terraces by British architects of the late Georgian period to describe streets of houses whose uniform fronts and uniform height created an ensemble that was more stylish than a "row". Townhouses (or townhomes) are generally two– to three-storey structures that share a wall with a neighbouring unit. As opposed to an apartment building, townhouses do not have neighbouring units above or below them. They are similar in concept to row houses or terraced houses, except they are usually divided into smaller groupings of homes."

Some fairly standard British snobbery at work there then. I first came across the term "row houses" playing the original sim city. As so often it turns out to be the Americans preserving English and the British introducing the neologism.

[Sheilbh]

Terraced houses are the ones Tamas finds depressing. I quite like them

Unrelated but I feel Labour MPs should maybe just avoid Twitter. There are two right now having a huge argument with one (Ivan Lewis) accusing the other (Tom Watson) of manipulating the leadership election

[Josquius]

It is pretty terrible how many terraces have been destroyed in the post-war years.


I remember when I was a kid a friend lived in a really old terraced row where they hadn't gotten around to putting up barriers between the houses in the attic. We had some laughs climbing around up there and spying on the neighbours.

Interestingly tower blocks do not achieve as high a population density as traditional terraced housing, nor are they as popular of course.

Take a look at this report, some particularly germane information on page 11 :

http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/create%20streets.pdf

An updated approach to terraced housing could achieve high population densities and satisfy British preferences for their own front door and whatnot.

The only solid info I'm seeing there is that medium rise is OK and there's no need for high rise.
It seems very odd that terraces could have higher density than flats. I'm not getting how that logically could be so. 5 stories fit more people than 2.

[Richard Hakluyt]

@Tyr

You can get higher densities with tower blocks but you need to stick them close together, as Zanza was implying with his comment about Mono. But, you know, we are entering "it is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people" territory.

Apparently the highest densities are achieved with slab-sided medium-rise blocks of flats or maisonettes. But again this is an unpopular style here in the UK.

[Ed Anger]

You Brits get a Cabrini-Green type of situation with your towers?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini–Green

[Sheilbh]

Apparently the highest densities are achieved with slab-sided medium-rise blocks of flats or maisonettes. But again this is an unpopular style here in the UK.

New York was the place where I first thought we need to get better at building just a little bit higher and I think that's what they've got.

You Brits get a Cabrini-Green type of situation with your towers?

Yeah. They were obviously smaller and less violent - so the Heygate estate only had 3000 people - but they got a dreadful reputation that wasn't entirely deserved. There's a fair few sink estates round me. It didn't help that they were built at the height of 60s/70s idealism/stupidity.

So the Trellick Tower, designed Erno Goldfinger, is now a highly desirable location. It's listed. The flats go for quite high prices because they're Brutalist classics (down to the fittings apparently) and if you want to live that sort of life there's nowhere better. So the tower's bit-by-bit being bought up by well-off professionals making a lifestyle choice.


When it was built though the council decided not to lock the main doors, or employ security, or have security cameras because that would be 'social fascism'. Needless to say it attracted lots of problems and became a sink estate.

[Ed Anger]

Now I get the Monty Python bits about the tower buildings.   

[Agelastus]

Terraced houses are the ones Tamas finds depressing. I quite like them

The old core of my town's terraced, houses and shops. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Quite attractive even (at least, where the owners haven't decided to plaster or paint over the brickwork and ruined the look of the street.)

So I agree with both Sheilbh and Tyr for once.

I don't see why they don't build them now - modern housing estates pack the houses so close together (at least where I live) anyway that I don't know why they don't simply take out that final yard or two.

[Sheilbh]

This may be of purely local interest but a pair of films about my area (and others) from the early 60s (I think):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwuvwHYraKo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhuagMMcA_E

The view on housing is very striking.

[The Brain]

Townhouse.

[Warspite]

Were your grandparents communist apparatchiks though? That could go a long way towards explaining it.

I wish. My grandfather refused to join the party and so despite his education and pre-war employment record and linguistic skills (French and German, and some English) he was assigned to be: a lorry driver. Still, he and his wife got a good, solid apartment.

[Richard Hakluyt]

This may be of purely local interest but a pair of films about my area (and others) from the early 60s (I think):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwuvwHYraKo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhuagMMcA_E

The view on housing is very striking.

I enjoyed those. I lived in London in 1964/5, it is fascinating to see something, once so modern, become the past