Pros and Cons
Single-detached homes have both advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages are that the entire space around the building is private to the owner and family, and in most cases (depending on national/federal, state/provincial, and local laws), one can add on to the existing house if more room is needed, and they typically have no property management fees such as the ones associated with condominiums and townhomes.
Disadvantages are that all maintenance and repair costs--interior, exterior, and everything in between--are at the owner's expense. Amenities such as pools and playgrounds are usually absent, unless built at private expense, or if a municipal playground is available. Some single-detached homes do have these features within the lot or nearby, given that their owners pay a homeowners fee similar to those in condos or townhomes. Landscaping and lawn upkeep costs are at the owner's expense.
From an environmental point of view, single-family houses are likely to require much more energy to heat in cold weather than do buildings with shared walls, because of their very high surface-area-to-volume ratio. In rich countries, the people who live in single-family houses are much more likely to own and use a private automobile rather than walking, biking, or using public transit to commute. The low density of housing leads to less frequent bus service and longer distances to commute, thus leading to increased car use. This makes single-family houses part of a much more energy and carbon-intensive lifestyle. The low-density nature of this type of housing requires using more land which could otherwise be used for agriculture or as natural habitat.
Inner city neighborhoods of larger cities tend to be densely populated and without significant room for houses devoted to just a single family. By contrast, the outer districts of larger cities are usually transitional areas with equal shares of smaller apartment buildings and single-detached homes.
Culturally, single-family houses are associated with suburbanization in many parts of the world. Owning a home with a yard and a "white picket fence" is seen as a key component of the "American dream" (which also exists with variations in other parts of the world). Single-family homes can also be associated with gated communities, particularly in developing countries.
Read more about this topic: Single-family Detached Home
Famous quotes related to pros and cons:
“Quite generally, the familiar, just because it is familiar, is not cognitively understood. The commonest way in which we deceive either ourselves or others about understanding is by assuming something as familiar, and accepting it on that account; with all its pros and cons, such knowing never gets anywhere, and it knows not why.... The analysis of an idea, as it used to be carried out, was, in fact, nothing else than ridding it of the form in which it had become familiar.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)