Quoted By:
I've been thinking a lot recently about what the 'ideal' housing solution might be that combines both a small footprint and encourages large families, and my mind went back to the 3-floor Victorian/Edwardian townhouses that you can find in the UK, usually as terraces or sometimes as semis. I remember some of my childhood friends lived in such houses and I was always impressed with how many decently-sized rooms they had despite looking small (in terms of width) from the street. For you burgerclaps, a point of comparison would be the 'brownstone' townhouses of NY and other similar buildings.
I wonder if it's possible to build houses similar to this in the present day for an affordable price, using modern materials and building techniques with an updated modern appearance.
I feel like these sort of houses could be a potential answer to the housing troubles that a lot of cities here in Australia are facing as the inner suburbs densify and a lot of the older housing stock is removed. A common complaint is that the newer urban infill is either small apartments or small single-story dogboxes, neither of which are conducive towards raising families of more than one child. If people want to have multiple kids they find themselves forced to either give up on the idea or (more frequently) go to outer suburbs, thus resulting in more urban sprawl as the suburbs expand ever outwards.
