When thinking about this week’s blog and doing some research, I came across vertical housing and horizontal housing. I had never heard of it and thought that all houses were vertical and horizontal, because well they’re houses. And all houses have to be both of these things to stand, which seems really silly now that I am typing it out. Turns out, horizontal housing has everything to do with communities and single family homes, while vertical housing has nothing to do with how the house is situated on top of the land and has everything to do with what’s going on underground.
Yes, you read that right—underground. Apparently, vertical housing is a lot like Disney World.
Now what exactly does that mean? It means that with so much land being used by other things that there have become shortages in parking and other things that a lot of people require when looking for somewhere to live. Developers came up with a solution for this that was more appealing to the masses and worked better for most communities.
So vertical housing applies to apartments. When you have a lot of apartments in a building you need ample amounts of parking and multiple options for garbage and recycling disposal, so how did developers come up with a solution that is underground you ask? Its easy when you actually think about it, they develop the land underneath the apartment buildings, most of the time this is for mid- and high-rises, and put as much space as they need to underground. Now properties don’t need to worry about the abundance of cars and possibly running out of space for said cars because there are ample amounts of parking located underneath the buildings. It also allows for more dumpsters and recycling bins to be located throughout the underground area so that there is enough space for everyone’s trash.
Now, lets talk about horizontal housing, because it is completely different then vertical housing.
Horizontal housing means that there are multiple single family homes built on small lots that are located in a development with high end amenities (typically high end but not all of these developments have them) and they have on-site property management. So, think of developments that are along the line of gated communities. In these communities there are more then 100 single family homes that are all located throughout the development.
Both of these housing options have their perks. They both have on site maintenance, planned residence events, and typically have decent to high end amenities. Why would one person choose one over the other though? It boils down to personal preference. Some people would rather have a backyard that is fenced in where they can let their pets and kids run free, others don’t want to deal with that maintenance. Some people need to be located closer to the city and most horizontal housing is not located as close to a city as vertical housing would be. So, they both have their pro’s and con’s—it just comes down to personal preference and, as always, price.
