European Courtyard Block Housing - Good for US Cities?
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https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/08/13/opinion-chicago-family-flight-suburbs/
How do we stop the alarming flight of young Chicago families to the suburbs? By building European-style courtyard blocks
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To compete with the suburbs, American cities should try an urban typology that has kept families in European city centers for millennia. With traditional courtyard urbanism, wall-to-wall buildings frame a city block so that the interior courtyard is closed off to the streets. The buildings are midrise, usually four to six stories tall and built to the property line. Because the buildings are high and wall-to-wall, the interior courtyards are safe and sound-insulated. Courtyard blocks are ideal for families because they provide residents convenient access to car-free green space where children can play safely.
Families also benefit from the walkability that arises from dense and mixed-use courtyard urbanism. The parent who needs to pick up groceries, a coffee, an antibiotic for a sick child or a six-pack can run down the stairs to the bodega, pharmacy and cafe on the ground floor. By collocating business and residential life, courtyard block neighborhoods are the most walkable and least car-dependent urban areas. They are also the greenest: Their walkability and density lead to greater energy efficiency and lower per-capita carbon emissions when compared with mono-zoned, car-dependent areas.
curious to hear the thoughts of @Klaus @Nunatax @Wim @Doctor-Phibes and any other Europe people we have here.
Courtyard buildings used to be pretty common in China, but mainly extended family compounds.
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@taiwan_girl said in European Courtyard Block Housing - Good for US Cities?:
curious to hear the thoughts of @Klaus @Nunatax @Wim @Doctor-Phibes and any other Europe people we have here.
They don't really do this much in the UK, at least where I lived. The ones I knew of were typically conversions from barns or old mills, and not in the city.
In London, a lot of the housing is in long terraces, or big old houses that have been turned in multi-family homes.
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I lived in such a structure in Paris in 2002.
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I don’t know a lot about this. We live in the suburbs since we just don’t like living in a busy city centre. We live near Ghent, where young people do live in such buildings a lot. But in a city like Ghent I suspect these kinds of houses/apartments are probably the most affordable, which is the deciding factor for young families. Not sure it has much to do with being isolated from the street noise here. We’re currently building a new house and are temporarily renting a place. We very nearly rented an apartment in such a courtyard block in Ghent. That was until the lady started telling us about the numerous great activities that were organised in the courtyard during the summer! Community BBQs! Concerts! Kubb championships! I’m pretty sure the noise in the streets is nothing compared to the courtyard noise in the summer, so she lost us there…
