Every now and then I come across photos of housing estates that consist of a huge number of identical houses with identical backyards. From the air it looks like someone clicked “copy + paste” way too many times.
If such housing estates are not an internet prank, what does an apartment in such an area look like?How long does it take to get to the city? Where are the service points – shops, pharmacies, nurseries, schools?
Comments
Tragically yes.
Hundreds might be an exaggeration but yeah, developers will plop down neighborhoods with like three architecture styles. We are a very car dependent country and a lot of times stores and services are 10-20 minutes driving distance. Just depends on the layout. Sometimes it’s like a self-contained community and you have retail and grocery and urgent care all within walking distance
They exist.
More common are neighborhoods with 3-4 different floor plans and they’ll be built in repeating order.
Little boxes on the hillside
There are “planned communities” yes. They’re usually strategically located to be somewhere around 20 minutes drive from most places in the city since if they were closer they run a larger chance of getting taken over by urban sprawl before they recoup the investment. If you have a large community materialize, businesses will just materialize nearby to serve them. Usually starting with Dollar Generals and a McDonald’s.
I don’t know about hundreds, but yes a lot of neighborhoods were developed that way. My neighborhood was built in the 50s and a lot of the houses have the same layout, or mirrored. It was always weird going into the neighbor’s house and it’s just a mirrored version of yours.
There are other layouts too, like 2 story capes. But they’re not really identical. In the 50 years since, each yard and house had the opportunity for its own character I suppose. People made additions, have different siding colors, fences, etc.
> How long does it take to get to the city?
It’s in the city. If I want to go downtown, it takes maybe 15 minutes to get there.
> shops, pharmacies, nurseries, schools?
There’s a school about 2 blocks away from my house. A lot of kids walk there. My school growing up also in this neighborhood, was about a 5 minute drive away.
There are 2 shopping plazas or strip malls within walking distance. Maybe a 10 or 20 minute walk. And a gas station 2 blocks away. I used to walk to it.
> what does an apartment in such an area look like
There are 2 apartment complexes by my neighborhood. They just look like apartments. Though I believe one is technically townhouses and it’s income restricted.
Yes, they’re real. It’s done by development companies, who buy large swaths of land, and build these neighborhoods. The identical designs keep costs low, which means cheaper houses for the eventual residents.
How is an apartment in one? The point of these is to have a house, not an apartment. Usually each house only contains one family. As for how those houses are? Usually pretty nice. I know reddit despises these sorts of places, and I don’t like them either, but you generally get a relatively spacious place with your own private yard.
As for how long it takes to get places, that entirely depends on the specific neighborhood. Some are surprisingly close to urban areas, and only take a few minutes to get to all the things you listed. Some are way far out, and it takes a while.
These places will often have some of the things you listed in them as well, or rather, between them, so not far at all
Reddit really hates these neighborhoods for some reason. Personally, I don’t like how they look and don’t want to live in one, but I’ll admit, they are a good option for many people.
It might be in some parts of the US, but I don’t see many of those in my region (New England). I’ve seen them on TV, and it seems like it’s mostly in the Southwest, where there are large swaths of flat land, and they build entire neighborhoods like that, with only a handful of house styles to choose from. They tend to be fairly suburban, so they have to drive and commute to a larger city.
Yeah in some places. Usually they aren’t identical. They are like 5 different designs repeated and rotated a bit
Not everyone likes them but some do.
Yes, mass production of housing suburbs look that way.
Basically, they create a template and throw up as many as they can fit within the area of land they have purchased as fast as possible. This makes the houses extremely cheap and usually of poor quality. Sometimes they are ok quality, but that is a an exception and not the rule.
Apartments are not usually part of these sorts of construction projects (at least none that I have seen).
The other things you mentioned are entirely dependent on where they are located as some are way far out from any major city and some are relatively close. Over time things like shops pharmacies and schools may start popping up as the area becomes more populated, but that is not always the case.
Mass production works for houses.
Yes, they exist. I absolutely hate them. There are lots of developments like this. The time to get to the city depends greatly on location. There is not an answer for that. Usually they are near an area that has some local stores/strip malls, with a grocery, pharmacy, and whatever else you need. If enough people live in an area, developers will bring in stores that are needed. And schools will be built for them.
Sure they exist.
Though, I’m not really sure what your other questions are asking? What does an apartment look like? I don’t know, an apartment? How long does it take to get to the city? What city? Most of these neighborhoods are in a city. To like an urban center? 15-30 minutes probably. What are the service points? Again, they are in their own city. Shops,.pharmacies, schools, nurseries, are all near by. I can probably get to 10 grocery stores waiting 15 minutes. My kids schools are about 15 minutes. I can think of 5 or 6 pharmacies and nurseries, all within 15 minutes.
Most of the time, the houses are not exactly the same, but are several different designs that look similar
A lot of the times, apartments aren’t even available in these areas. If there are apartments, they are typically “garden apartments” that are 2-3 stories and outdoor breezeways. The suburban town I grew up in didn’t have any apartments until like 2020
These neighborhoods are all over the place. Some are very close to large cities while some are very far away.
Plenty of shops, restaurants, schools, pharmacies, etc., but you will have to drive to them. (Schools pick up kids in the yellow school buses)
I live in a suburban neighborhood like this. I am a 5 minute drive from the downtown of the small suburban city I live in, and 30-60 minutes from the city city depending on traffic. Plenty of shops, restaurants, doctor’s offices, etc. around me. Schools are better in the suburbs than the cities and country
> If such housing estates are not an internet prank, what does an apartment in such an area look like?
Mostly they don’t exist
> like?How long does it take to get to the city?
As little as 5 minutes as far as an hour really depends on the area. Also depends what you mean by city. Generally these housing tracts are in the suburbs of cities. These cities can be as small as 20,000 people
> Where are the service points – shops, pharmacies, nurseries, schools?
Schools and parks are often in the neighborhood of hosues. Stores are typically a short drive away.
Very real, basically anywhere in the last 50-70 years what happens is a large developer buys a massive tract of land and portions out the lots and then buyers get a choice of usually 1-4 different similar home plans that can be built on their lot. Usually there are no services or shops in these residential sections so depending on the size of the city and rate of sprawl sometimes it can be several miles to the closest commercial area. A big part of it is US zoning laws rarely have mixed use areas and changing zoning type is difficult and expensive so it’s cheaper and easier for a developer to buy a “section” (a square mile) and have it all zoned as residential. Older cities have more mixed areas , but after WWII suburban sprawl took over everywhere
yes, some suburban neighborhoods are like this where one builder does the entire plot. Houses will usually have 2-3 different floor plans. They’re part of the greater metro area so those services are somewhere in the area, but not in the neighborhood itself. Typically these are single family homes, not apartments, and relatively speaking, they are on the more budget friendly side. In my area these are on the far throws of the greater metro area so it can take a great deal of time to get to the main part of the city, but those areas do have other infrastructure for restaurants and shops and that kind of thing.
Yeah, they’re called housing developments. Usually the houses are not literally identical and come in like 4 variations and 4 colors lol but yeah they’re not my favorite. There are usually no apartments in these developments, they are all detached houses. In my experience the houses are pretty new, pretty bland, and huge. Like 4-5 bedrooms.
How long it takes to get to the city depends on the development. Some are within city limits, some are in suburbs, and some are in exurbs nowhere close to the city. Most developments are not close to downtown of a city and are often built around a giant shopping center where people can shop, eat, get medical care, etc. These shopping centers are also very bland and fake and filled with chains.
While it’s not for me, the benefit to these places are you get a big, nice house in a clean, safe neighborhood for a more affordable price. For people with school-aged kids who don’t prioritize having cool, unique experiences and who spend most of their time either at home or taking their kids to various activities, I can see why they would choose to live there.
Yes, they are weird.
My street has 2 identical house styles. The only difference is the 4th bedroom is over the garage or not.
called cookie cutter neighborhoods.
In some places, yes. These images probably also aren’t showing that the development is close to a major road and/or commercial area. They’re probably still only 5-10 minutes away from most things. It isn’t like a development of 500 houses that for some reason exists by itself 20 miles away from civilization.
They’re out there, yeah. A developer buys up a whole swath of land outside town, levels it and builds a neighborhood, repeating the same handful of floorplans, sometimes mirrored for “variety”.
These are also where a lot of the worst HOA stories come from.
Those are SFH developments, there are no apartments in them. One just outside that area could look like anything, it would be a separate project.
You act like this is unique to the US.
I could pick any number of London suburbs and see the same thing.
They are real. It has been a thing for a while though. In my neighborhood that was mostly built up in the late 1940s there are a couple streets that are all the exact same house but with different front porch configurations. It’s much easier and cheaper to build because you can move workers between houses without a lot of orientation time and materials purchasing is almost the same for each house
Google Levittown. You could order homes from the Sears catalog and while there was some variation they are all extremely similar. That’s your first ring of suburbs. Modern exurbs are built by development companies so they are all similar for the same reason.
Big nation, large population, and that leads to a lot of big purchases in bulk and you can get a lot done if you don’t give people much flexibility and that helps keep costs in line.
If everyone wants their own custom house, that is more expensive.
Few are surprised that moving to the suburbs or exurbs means you won’t have stuff right at your doorstep, but people find 10-15 minute drives to be reasonable, and often its even less than that.
Yes. I live in one. 🫠 They’re everywhere because they’re cheaper to build with only 4-6 floor plans for a whole neighborhood