Single Story

Inexpensive Housing: Perhaps the single most important difference between American cities and the older cities of Europe and elsewhere has been the percentage of people who can afford to own their own homes. In the older cities of Europe it was usually only the most affluent and powerful who could afford a house of their own. In the cities of the United States, particularly the newer cities west of the Appalachians, very fast economic growth and affluence, together with cheap land and an increasingly efficient lumber industry made possible a vast expansion in this number of people who could afford a single family house on its own lot. Because of this, Chicago exploded outward at densities much lower than those in older cities.

Cottage-Bungalow-Ranch: In Chicago, as in most of the fastest growing cities of the late nineteenth century, the entry-level house was a one-story or story-and-a-half cottage. Over the years this building type remained remarkably constant, transmuting into the Chicago bungalow in the 1920s and then into the Small Ranch or Cape Cod house of the 1950s. Through this entire process the basic format and plan of the entry level story or story-and-a-half house remained remarkably constant.

Bibliography: A scholarly book with some excellent information on the transformation of the small workers' dwelling is:

•Joseph Bigott, From Cottage to Bungalow: Housing and the Working Class in Metropolitan Chicago, 1869-1929, University of Chicago Press, 2001.


The Field Guide to Chicago Buildings was developed as a collaborative effort between the City Design Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Chicago Teachers' Center of Northeastern Illinios University with funding from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the United States Department of Education.
		Single story or story-and-a-half dwellings

		Inexpensive Housing: Perhaps the single most important difference between American cities and the older cities of Europe and elsewhere has been the percentage of people who can afford to own their own homes. In the older cities of Europe it was usually only the most affluent and powerful who could afford a house of their own. In the cities of the United States, particularly the newer cities west of the Appalachians, very fast economic growth and affluence, together with cheap land and an increasingly efficient lumber industry made possible a vast expansion in this number of people who could afford a single family house on its own lot. Because of this, Chicago exploded outward at densities much lower than those in older cities. Cottage-Bungalow-Ranch: In Chicago, as in most of the fastest growing cities of the late nineteenth century, the entry-level house was a one-story or story-and-a-half cottage. Over the years this building type remained remarkably constant, transmuting into the Chicago bungalow in the 1920s and then into the Small Ranch or Cape Cod house of the 1950s. Through this entire process the basic format and plan of the entry level story or story-and-a-half house remained remarkably constant. Bibliography: A scholarly book with some excellent information on the transformation of the small workers' dwelling is: •Joseph Bigott, From Cottage to Bungalow: Housing and the Working Class in Metropolitan Chicago, 1869-1929, University of Chicago Press, 2001.