Townhouse - North America

North America

In the United States and Canada, a townhouse has two connotations. The older predates the automobile and denotes a house on a small footprint in a city, but because of its multiple floors (sometimes six or more), it has a large living space, often with servant's quarters. The small footprint of the townhouse allows it to be within walking or mass transit distance of business and industrial areas of the city, yet luxurious enough for wealthy residents of the city.

In areas so densely built that detached single-family houses are uncommon or almost nonexistent, ownership of a townhouse connotes wealth. Some examples of cities where townhouses are occupied almost exclusively by the wealthy are New York City, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto, Washington, DC, and San Francisco.

"Rowhouses" are similar, and consist of several adjacent (next to), uniform units originally found in urban areas on the east coast such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, but now found in lower-cost housing developments in suburbs as well. A rowhouse will generally be smaller and less luxurious than a dwelling called a townhouse.

The name "townhouse" or "townhomes" was later used to describe non-uniform units in suburban areas that are designed to mimic detached or semi-detached homes. Today, the name townhouse is used to describe units mimicking a detached home that are attached in a multi-unit complex. The distinction between dwellings called "apartments" and those called "townhouses" is that townhouses usually consist of multiple floors and have their own outside door as opposed to having only one level and an interior hallway access. They can also be “stacked” and such townhouses have multiple units vertically (typically two), normally each with its own private entrance from the street or at least from the outside. They can be side by side in a row of three or more, in which case they are sometimes referred to as “rowhouses”. A townhouse in a group of two could be referred to as a townhouse but, in Canada and in the United States, it is typically called a semi-detached, and, in some areas of western Canada, a half-duplex.

An example of a non-traditional "townhouse" that is in a complex akin to an apartment complex, is a two bedroom unit with the living room in the front on the lower level, kitchen in the back. Two bedrooms are on the front and back of the upper level with a single bathroom between. This style has become less popular in areas where it has been adopted by 'rent control' or HUD apartments.

In Canada, single family dwellings, be they any type such as single family detached homes, apartments, mobile homes or townhouses for example, are split into two categories of ownership:

• condominium (strata title) where one owns the interior of the unit, and also a specified share of the undivided interest of the remainder of the building and land known as common elements.
• Freehold, where one owns exclusively the land and the dwelling without any condominium aspects. In the United States this type of ownership called fee simple.

Condominium townhouses, just like condominium apartments, are often referred to as "condos", thus referring to the type of ownership rather than to the type of dwelling. Since apartment style condos are the most common, when someone refers to a "condo", many erroneously assume that it must be an apartment style dwelling and conversely that only apartment style dwellings can be condos. All types of dwellings can be condos and this is therefore true of townhouses. A "Brownstone" townhouse is a particular variety found in New York.