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homestead - Re: [Homestead] Rediscovering low cost tract housing

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  • From: tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Rediscovering low cost tract housing
  • Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 11:32:20 -0500

keith bellinger wrote:

I hate tract housing, it's boring to build it and more boring to live in it. I suppose if I was the owner it might have been different. I know one contractor I worked for made a killing from me and my crew. On the plus side, we got better and faster as the houses went up until the miserly per square foot price we got made a little sense.


tvoivozhd wrote:

I really liked tract-building---got the same emotional lift from it as I got from growing corn on the farm (another destructive enterprise).



tvoivozhd---a big enough tract makes it possible to build in neighborhood amenities such as parks, greenway-pedestrian and bike paths, off-street parking, joint gardening tracts upon which house-clusters impinge, small shopping areas, schools, libraries, clinics---can't do this on scatter-lots. Scatter-lot houses tend to be more interesting, but the award-winning Godfrey and Farmer tract housing in Phoenix back in the 1950's had interchangeable modules for esthetic differences---according to the FHA, best houses---and unbeatable price---$6500 to $7500, including the usual quarter acre lot---and Felix Lobo built a livable house in Puerto Rico for $4500. Smaller lot and concrete walls poured in steel forms---hell for strong but monotonous as far as appearance was concerned.





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