Should housing reflect the environment?

Question

Yep, this is another complaint about the suburban sprawl. I undertand that people want peace and quiet. My question? Why can't those houses in the country reflect a country enviornment(i.e. they can be big, small, w/e) but why not build them in a country like style instead of that cookie-cutter style that they build in? B/c in the city, the upscale lofts are beautiful and same goes for those old historic homes.

Another thing, instead of completely clearing out woods, why not try and build around them, so that yards can still have trees in them?

Basically, why the h**l can't more surburban dwellings have CHARACTER?

Answer 1

Nor everyone is wealthy and can afford to buy all of the land this would require.    The few people who are wealthy enough to afford this do tend to keep as many trees as possible, even having their architects design the house with the tree preservation in mind.

Answer 2

Developers only have so many templates they use to construct houses. If you're not shelling out mega$ on a house individually designed by an architect, you're probably going to have to settle for a pre-existing design, tweaked (but not seriously altered) by you. Aside from that most people suffer from a lack of true imagination or creativity, or else why would they live in tract housing designed and controlled (via covenants) by the builders? Even in unincorporated areas these developments suffer from a paucity of imagination. or originality (read character). Also remember that county planning commissions suffer from the same stultifying lack of imagination. They don't want any thing "too different" So when a developer builds the same tired, unimaginative, uncreative, unoriginal, inorganic, characterless designs, the elected officials, or their surrogates, jump on the design, and tweak whatever real character it had out of it. People are sheep. They buy into housing associations, thinking that the association is there to protect property values, when in fact the associations are puppets of the developers, who work furiously to stifle anything that doesn't look like the "ticky-tacky" that they've designed, en masse for decades. It's c**p, but people will buy c**p. Remember pet rocks, and KISS albums?

Answer 3

One word: MONEY

It’s less expensive to use available materials than to have custom ones created. This equals less individuality.

If you’re talking about subdivisions, it’s less expensive (i.e. more profitable) for the builder to make all of the homes pretty similar.

As for cutting down trees, it takes more time, planning, and effort to work around existing landscaping. All of those factors cost money, and spending money erodes profits.

I don’t disagree with you, but high profit/low cost is the main priority in the home building industry. I personally have not seen a home built in the last 30 years that I could honestly say I like. Even a lot of high end homes seem so cookie cutter.