THE BELGIAN DREAM

[RawLee]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

I found these stats on the eurostat website, Belgium has far more detached housing than Germany but not as much as Scandinavia or the Balkans. Here in the UK we are more like Belgium, not many apartments but lots of our houses are rowhomes or semi-detached.



Here though it is not so common to build your own home, large property development companies tend to buy up all the farmland surrounding towns and cities so when it comes to be developed they build the houses in a planned block and then sell them.

There are regional variations though, I read somewhere that 50% of the detached homes built in Wales are self-built compared to only 10-15% in the whole of the UK.

There are more good stats on European housing on the eurostat website.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/sta...ing_statistics

We are one of the most suburban?

[Jonesy55]

That surprised me a bit but I've just had a look at a random Hungarian town (Kaposvár) on Google maps and there does seem to be a lot of detached suburban housing.

Some of it looks very much like Belgian style roadside strip development.

[Jonesy55]

Pecs looks super-suburban, what's going on in the large area to the north-west of the city centre? It looks like completely random sprawl!

Is this a deep Magyar longing to be living as nomads back on the steppes?

[nordisk celt83]

Remember some countries are more rural than others too... So, somewhere like Slovenia and other Balkan countries are largely rural in population. Therefore they're over-represented in terms of detached homes while the urban environment is in relaity dominated by aprtment living.

Also, have to question some of the findings. I can believe Ireland has the lowest number of people living in apartments alright, but the semi-detached/row housing is way over-represented.

[nordisk celt83]

Unless, the survey is purely urban in nature... Then, I stand to be corrected.
It's just the Ireland figure that seems a bit distorted to me, but the Norway one makes sense!!!

[GENIUS LOCI]

Originally Posted by RawLee

We are one of the most suburban?

I'm surprised that Germany got more flats than Italy (the same level, anyway) as normally German cities appear way more suburban than Italian ones (it is difficult to do a generalization though)
Maybe this is due to the large use of flats for 'social housing' in Eastern Germany during the comunism

Even the data of France and Portugal are 'unespected'

[joshsam]

Along with the detached houses, stripmalls and malls are common in Belgium:

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by nordisk celt83

Remember some countries are more rural than others too... So, somewhere like Slovenia and other Balkan countries are largely rural in population. Therefore they're over-represented in terms of detached homes while the urban environment is in relaity dominated by aprtment living.

Also, have to question some of the findings. I can believe Ireland has the lowest number of people living in apartments alright, but the semi-detached/row housing is way over-represented.

You will find plenty of houses in the suburbs of Ljubljana, even quite close to the centre. But yes, the more rural countries will tend to have more detached houses.

Regarding Ireland, I've only been to Dublin but the suburbs seemed to be full of semi-detached houses, even more than here in the UK.

[Chrissib]

Originally Posted by GENIUS LOCI

I'm surprised that Germany got more flats than Italy (the same level, anyway) as normally German cities appear way more suburban than Italian ones (it is difficult to do a generalization though)
Maybe this is due to the large use of flats for 'social housing' in Eastern Germany during the comunism

Even the data of France and Portugal are 'unespected'

There is a different explanation for Germany. Many people live in buildings with 3 flats stacked, from outside it often looks like a big single-family house. It's true that in eastern Germany the share of flats is higher than in the west, but even in the west it's over 50%.

[Rietveld]

Originally Posted by RawLee

These data are incorrect for the Netherlands. About half of all homes in the Netherlands consist of terraced houses. A terraced house isn't the same as a semi-detached house.

[Jonesy55]

Also in the UK about 25% of homes are terraced houses but in this graph they have lumped them together with semi-detached in one category. It would be good to see them separately, as you say they are not the same.

[niterider]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

You will find plenty of houses in the suburbs of Ljubljana, even quite close to the centre. But yes, the more rural countries will tend to have more detached houses.

Regarding Ireland, I've only been to Dublin but the suburbs seemed to be full of semi-detached houses, even more than here in the UK.

Yes Dublin is surprisingly sprawled and even then is the most similar city in the ROI to UK cities of the same size. The rest of the country is even more suburban and low-density in nature. But it has the luxury of a low population relative to available land and other factors such as a lack of urban tradition, low population, and no post-war rebuilding of urban areas.

[tk780]

Originally Posted by GENIUS LOCI

I'm surprised that Germany got more flats than Italy (the same level, anyway) as normally German cities appear way more suburban than Italian ones (it is difficult to do a generalization though)
Maybe this is due to the large use of flats for 'social housing' in Eastern Germany during the comunism

Even the data of France and Portugal are 'unespected'

As a comparison between Portugal and Sweden shows, the number of people living in detached houses only tells you so much about how dense or suburban a country's cities are.

Indeed, German cities are among the least dense and physically largest in Europe despite a comparatively low share of the population living in detached houses.

I suppose part of the reason is that, as Chrissib said, German apartment buildings often look like oversized single-family homes and house relatively few people on average. German households are on average quite small and living space per person is relatively high. Also, it wouldn't surprise me if the number of people in households living in detached houses was actually below the national average, which means that there might be more detached houses in relation to the total number of residential buildings than the graph suggests.

[nordisk celt83]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

You will find plenty of houses in the suburbs of Ljubljana, even quite close to the centre. But yes, the more rural countries will tend to have more detached houses.

Regarding Ireland, I've only been to Dublin but the suburbs seemed to be full of semi-detached houses, even more than here in the UK.

Yeah, Dublin is a semi-d mecca in Irish terms... Don't actually live in Dublin myself anymore; live in a commuter town just outside it, Enniskerry. The rest of the country is typified by poor planning and a proponerance of one-off houses, which ruin the landscape.
I had a quick search on google, and the facts for Ireland are from 1992-2005 as there's no data on older housing stock, so that explains things the extent of semi's, which are more common nowadays.
Also, had a quick look on the main property websites and it would put figures at 60-70% detached; 15-20% semi-detached 10% terraced and 5% apartments. (35% of ireland's pop is rural)

Norway, def has the highest number of detached family residences I would have thought. Olso is very sprawling, but seems to function well enough.

[Dahlis]

Damn areas like that look really boring when the ground is completely flat.

[joshsam]

Originally Posted by Dahlis

Damn areas like that look really boring when the ground is completely flat.

as boring as hilly suburbs I guess...

[Dahlis]

Originally Posted by joshsam

as boring as hilly suburbs I guess...

At least a hill would ad something to the monotone enviroment.

[joshsam]

Originally Posted by Dahlis

At least a hill would ad something to the monotone enviroment.

Point, but it's not like Belgium is the USA two

[goschio]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

It's funny how societies can be so different, in the minds of most British people living on the 20th floor would probably be associated with the worst social housing projects, drugs, inner-city violence etc.

)

Interesting, thats the same in Germany. Only very recently there are luxury condos on the market. But most rich people (upper middle class, ecucational elite etc) still prefer their bourgeois inner city apartmentt in a historical low rise building. Highrise apartments were not really considered prestigous. But that might change now slowly with new prime developments.

[.for.ce.br]

Originally Posted by goschio

Highrise apartments were not really considered prestigous.

It's so strange to a Brazilian to hear it! Highrise apartments are very prestigous here at least since the 80's, when the upper middle class condos with 14 floors and above started to spread all over the biggest cities.


Typical Brazilian residential highrise: