Streetcar suburb
Such suburbs developed in the United States in the years before the automobile, when the introduction of the electric trolley or streetcar allowed the nation’s burgeoning middle class to move beyond the central city’s borders.
[1] Early suburbs were served by horsecars, but by the late 19th century cable cars and electric streetcars, or trams, were used, allowing residences to be built farther away from the urban core of a city.
San Francisco's Western Addition is one of the best examples of streetcar suburbs before westward and southward expansion occurred.
However, some concepts are generally present in streetcar suburbs, such as straight (often gridiron) street plans and relatively narrow lots.
In 1852, architect Alexander Jackson Davis designed Llewellyn Park in New Jersey, a planned suburb served by both ferry[citation needed] and steam railroad.
In the 1840s and 1850s, new railroad lines fostered the development of such New York City suburbs as Yonkers, White Plains, and New Rochelle.
The steam locomotive in the mid 19th century provided the wealthy with the means to live in bucolic surroundings, to socialize in country clubs[2] and still commute to work downtown.
By 1860, they operated in most major American and Canadian cities, including New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Montreal, and Boston.
[11] The houses in a streetcar suburb were generally narrow in width compared to later homes, and Arts and Crafts movement styles like the California Bungalow and American Foursquare were most popular.
Along the lines, developers built rectangular "additions" with homes, usually on small lots, within a five- to ten-minute walk of the streetcar.
The home ownership boom facilitated by the Federal Housing Administration excluded neighborhoods which received negative reviews from FHA and bank officials in the underwriting process.
FHA standards at the time discouraged many design features common in streetcar suburbs; small lots, narrow streets, semi-detached housing, lack of off-street parking, and mixing single-family houses with apartment or commercial buildings were all viewed negatively in FHA reports.
Without streetcar services, and lacking adequate space and infrastructure for residents to keep private automobiles, these neighborhoods were considered obsolete and were a frequent target of Urban renewal programs.
Because stores were originally built along streetcar lines, a person could exit the transport near home, do some light shopping for dinner items, and continue by walking to his or her residence.
Very few small groceries remain (outside of dense cities), though the space is often now used for non-foodstuff retail, capable of drawing clients from outside of the immediate neighborhood.
Most of Montreal's streetcar suburbs feature a mix of attached red-brick or greystone duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and multiplexes with exterior staircases instead of narrow-lot single-family homes.
[40][41] From the late 1880s to the end of the streetcar era, transit lines spread out of Washington and into the surrounding areas of Montgomery and Prince George's counties in Maryland, heading out to Rockville, Forest Glen, Kensington, Takoma Park, and Berwyn Heights.
Here, therefore, the term "streetcar suburb" is not needed as distinct concept as most neighborhoods in many European cities are tram-oriented, especially in those countries which still had a lower rate of private automobile ownership in the 20th century, such as in the former Soviet Union.
As housing was scarce in much of the Eastern bloc, new construction mostly occurred in the Plattenbau/Panelák style and new neighborhoods were planned from the outset with a tram connection to enable easy commuting.
