The history of the emergence of the American residential areas.
The construction of sleeping areas in the United States begins with the development of the land and prepare the site for construction. The land is divided into individual lots, ready for the streets, built a sewer and plum rain, summing electrical network, gas and telephone lines, and then starts building houses. Such plots are prepared and built by the same company. But it was not always.
Today I will tell the story of the “American dream” of the period 1900 — 1940-ies and will consider such construction for the population from a financial point of view.
Photos and text mechanismone
1. Before the twentieth century most residential districts have been relatively small, but new areas have grown around existing areas through lengthening of existing streets. Any government requirements for developers was not, because companies developers essentially did not exist. At the time, was heavily regulated, only the development of the Central parts of the city to preserve the beauty.
The company sold the land under the individual building, but after purchasing the plot of land the owner had already ordered the building of any construction company. After some time, the companies that sell the land, it became clear that will be much more profitable to sell the land in areas with existing infrastructure instead of individual plots. Thus was born the term “construction district”.
2. One of the first areas of this type was built in 1927 by two independent companies under the supervision of two architects — E. of Boston, close to Baltimore city, and D. Nicholas, in the suburbs of Kansas city.
3. Areas numbered about 6,000 houses with a population of 35,000 people. Because the development area in both cases was very large, the developer had to solve a number of new issues in the construction of complete infrastructure in the form of schools, shops, nearby office buildings. In this case, just technical and communication lines wasn’t enough, then the architects decided to introduce the first standards of building sleeping areas.
4. Thus were born several associations of architects and builders, who today govern most aspects of the construction of sleeping areas, namely, the national Association of city planning and the American Institute of urban construction. In addition to the regulations and laws regarding building standards, the Association helped new companies in building design and planning areas, which helped largely to potential buyers since the company started to provide a master development plan for buyers.
5. But with the advent of economic depression the question of construction of the residential areas were temporarily frozen: most people are caught in a cash-strapped situation. The issues of further improvement areas had to be temporarily postponed until better times. President H. Hoover in 1929 to convene hearings on the housing question, at the very moment when the depression was just beginning, and construction companies began to hastily freeze construction projects due to insolvency of the population. But before the arrival of the Roosevelt administration to the cardinal laws have been adopted.
6. At that time the house was bought by the owners directly, so to live in residential areas could afford only the rich and well-off people, even middle-class kind of life was not affordable.
7. In the period from 1910 to the mid 1920’s, banks gave mortgages to private individuals with good solvency for the period from 2 to 5 years, but all such loans were “expensive” for the middle class population. Although it is worth noting that the first mass attempt of loans were made already in 1932 after the government of the law on loans to private real estate.
8. Already by 1933, due to insolvency, the house received on loans, 1932, leaves the owners with a rate of about 1,000 per day. It is no wonder that President Franklin D. Roosevelt with the arrival of the white house, saw one of the components of economic recovery in the provision of affordable housing. In the presidential administration said: if people are happy at home, they will be happy and at work.
9. Therefore, on June 27, 1934, the government, with the President’s signature, takes one of the most important laws for building sleeping areas — Federal act of loans for the purchase of private property.
10. For the first time in the history of the country house owners had the opportunity to protect your mortgage from rising or falling prices by 80%, and the loan issued by the government for a period of 15 years at 5% per annum.
11. The program itself lasted 3 years, but it is in these three years, the population of the middle class for the first time gets the opportunity to buy a house in the suburbs, there is a surge of construction of sleeping areas. In this period born the term “the American dream”.
12. By the third year of the program’s existence, the interest rate was reduced to 3%, and the loan term is increased to 20-25 years, and those who got the loan at a higher rate could get the refinancing.
13. The next stage of the revitalization of the construction accounts for the period of the Second world war, when gradually began to return its members, which the state provided assistance in the form of various subsidies, but provided with a good job. War veterans always get a job in the first place.
14. By the way, this principle remains valid today. An even greater acceleration in the construction of houses for servicemen received after the adoption in 1944 of the law on assistance to veterans, or the so-called law “the rights of servicemen”, which guaranteed the mortgage with a low percentage from the state to purchase the property after the army’s contract and dismissal of military personnel.
15. The first mass areas with complete infrastructure are beginning to flourish in California, where in the period from 1941 to 1944, the year it was built 2,300 houses for war veterans.
16. At this time, the company begins to build in areas already familiar to today’s layout, with its green areas, office buildings, schools, shops, kindergartens.
17. Sleeping areas cease to be areas and become an independent municipal units with their names, zip codes, phone codes. The majority of the population of such areas work in the city, but part of the population gets the job directly within such areas. Small business begins to spread from Central cities to their suburbs, which further enhances the development of residential areas.
18. At the same time, begin to tighten the requirements of the land use, the first such laws were adopted in 1909. The purpose of the adoption of the laws was primarily to preserve the residential areas clean and tidy. For example, factories were forbidden to locate in a radius of 20 km from the residential areas. Buffer zone served as an office building or warehouse, as well as chain stores.
19. With the adoption of laws on regulation of land use, the builders returned to the question of the revision of the design of residential districts and the creation within them of comfort and beauty not only in parks but also in improvement of design of houses and layout of streets, the creation of artificial reservoirs and recreational areas.
20. In the next part I will tell you about the evolution of the sleeping areas on the basis of the evolution of the transportation systems of the United States, well then, we’ll talk about the design and layout of the sleeping areas.
21. PS In the photos one of the suburbs of Houston.
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