Mass-produced tract housing erased regional climate-adapted design by 1950

Evidence

By 1950, however, the regional traditions of design were in decline. The rise of the balloon-frame form of construction, the mailorder house, and the mass-produced subdivision all had led to a more uniform architecture. … As one critic wrote in 1949, Americans had “gone backward and unlearned things we used to know. We have built, in the South, little, low-ceilinged hotboxes without properly shaded roofs. We have built, in the North, houses with thin brick walls that are cold in winter and hot in summer. We have put Cape Cod houses into climates that are as different from Cape Cod as Cape Cod is from England.” — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 240

Categorization

• XREF: The one-size-fits-all tract house embodying ignorance of place echoes the book’s own ch19 square-footage monotony claim and the reader’s land/place thread. — connects to: Energy efficiency conflicted with postwar taste for glass and open layouts — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 248; Mass-production homebuilding homogenized house design and spiked energy use nationwide — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 34; Environmental criticism of postwar housing began by 1950 but went largely unheard — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 157 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Tract housing’s design deficiencies directly generated residential energy demand #expands (0.90) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 264
• Cheap energy and mortgage pressure defeated energy-efficient postwar housing design #corroborates (0.85) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 214