England In London, by the time of the 2011 census, 52 per cent of all homes were flats. Many of these were built as Georgian or Victorian houses and subsequently divided up. Many others were built as
council flats. Many
tower blocks were built after the
Second World War. A number of these have been demolished and replaced with low-rise buildings or
housing estates. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the concept of the flat was slow to catch on amongst the British middle classes, which generally followed the north European standard of single-family houses dating far back into history. Those who lived in flats were assumed to be lower class and somewhat itinerant, renting for example a "flat above a shop" as part of a lease agreement for a tradesman. In London and most of Britain, everyone who could afford to do so occupied an entire house—even if this was a small
terraced house—while the working poor continued to rent rooms in often overcrowded properties, with one (or more) families per room. During the last quarter of the 19th century, as wealth increased, ideas began to change. Both urban growth and the increase in population meant that more imaginative housing concepts would be needed if the middle and upper classes were to maintain a in the capital. The traditional
London town house was becoming increasingly expensive to maintain. For bachelors and unmarried women in particular, the idea of renting a modern mansion flat became increasingly popular. The first mansion flats in England were: • Albert Mansions, which Philip Flower constructed and
James Knowles designed. These flats were constructed between 1867 and 1870, and were one of the earliest blocks of flats to fill the vacant spaces of the newly-laid out
Victoria Street at the end of the 1860s. Today, only a sliver of the building remains, next to the
Victoria Palace Theatre. Albert Mansions was really 19 separate "houses", each with a staircase serving one flat per floor. Its tenants included
Sir Arthur Sullivan and
Lord Alfred Tennyson, whose connections with the developer's family were long-standing. Philip Flower's son,
Cyril Flower, developed most of the mansion blocks on
Prince of Wales Drive, London. • Albert Hall Mansions, designed by
Richard Norman Shaw in 1876. Because this was a new type of housing, Shaw reduced risks as much as possible; each block was planned as a separate project, with the building of each part contingent on the successful occupation of every flat in the previous block. The gamble paid off and was a success.
Scotland in
Edinburgh,
Scotland (1893) In
Scotland, the term "
tenement" lacks the pejorative connotations it carries elsewhere and refers simply to any block of flats sharing a common central staircase and lacking an elevator, particularly those constructed before 1919. Tenements were, and continue to be, inhabited by a wide range of social classes and income groups. Tenements today are bought by a wide range of social types, including young professionals, older
retirees, and by
absentee landlords, often for rental to students after they leave
halls of residence managed by their institution. The
Tenement House is a
historic house museum operated by the
National Trust for Scotland which offers an insight into the lifestyle of tenement dwellers as it was generations ago. During the 19th century, tenements became the predominant type of new housing in Scotland's industrial cities, although they were very common in the
Old Town in Edinburgh from the 15th century, where they reached ten or eleven stories and in one case fourteen stories. Built of
sandstone or
granite, Scottish tenements are usually three to five stories in height, with two to four flats on each floor. (In contrast, industrial cities in England tended to favour "
back-to-back"
terraces of
brick.) Scottish tenements are constructed in terraces, and each entrance within a block is referred to as a
close or
stair—both referring to the shared passageway to the individual flats. Flights of stairs and landings are generally designated common areas, and residents traditionally took turns to sweep clean the floors and, in
Aberdeen in particular, took turns to make use of shared laundry facilities in the "back green" (garden or yard). It is now more common for cleaning of the common ways to be contracted out through a managing agent or "factor". In
Glasgow, where Scotland's highest concentration of tenement dwellings can be found, the urban renewal projects of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s brought an end to the city's slums, which had primarily consisted of older tenements built in the early 19th century in which large
extended families would live together in cramped conditions. They were replaced by high-rise blocks that, within a couple of decades, became notorious for crime and poverty. The
Glasgow Corporation made many efforts to improve the situation, most successfully with the City Improvement Trust, which cleared the slums of the old town, replacing them with what they thought of as a traditional high street, which remains an imposing townscape. (The City Halls and the
Cleland Testimonial were part of this scheme.) National government help was given following
World War I when Housing Acts sought to provide "homes fit for heroes". Garden suburb areas, based on English models, such as
Knightswood, were set up. These proved too expensive, so a modern tenement, three stories high, slate roofed and built of reconstituted stone, was re-introduced and a
slum clearance programme initiated to clear areas such as the
Calton and the
Garngad. After
World War II, more ambitious plans, known as the
Bruce Plan, were made for the complete evacuation of slums for modern mid-rise housing developments on the outskirts of the city. However, the central government refused to fund the plans, preferring instead to depopulate the city to a series of
New Towns. Again, economic considerations meant that many of the planned "New Town" amenities were never built in these areas. These housing estates, known as "schemes", came therefore to be widely regarded as unsuccessful; many, such as
Castlemilk, were just dormitories well away from the centre of the city with no amenities, such as shops and
public houses ("deserts with windows", as
Billy Connolly once put it). High-rise living too started off with bright ambition—the Moss Heights, built in the 1950s, are still desirable—but fell prey to later economic pressure. Many of the later tower blocks were poorly designed and cheaply built and their anonymity caused some social problems. The demolition of the tower blocks in order to build modern housing schemes has in some cases led to a re-interpretations of the tenement. In 1970, a team from
Strathclyde University demonstrated that the old tenements had been basically sound, and could be given new life with replumbing providing modern kitchens and bathrooms. and the policy of demolition is considered to have destroyed fine examples of a "universally admired architectural" style.Blind Man's Alley bear its name for a reason. Until little more than a year ago its dark burrows harbored a colony of blind beggars, tenants of a blind landlord, old Daniel Murphy, whom every child in the ward knows, if he never heard of the President of the United States. "Old Dan" made a big fortune—he told me once four hundred thousand dollars—out of his alley and the surrounding tenements, only to grow blind himself in extreme old age, sharing in the end the chief hardship of the wretched beings whose lot he had stubbornly refused to better that he might increase his wealth. Even when the
Board of Health at last compelled him to repair and clean up the worst of the old buildings, under threat of driving out the tenants and locking the doors behind them, the work was accomplished against the old man's angry protests. He appeared in person before the Board to argue his case, and his argument was characteristic. "I have made my will," he said. "My monument stands waiting for me in Calvary. I stand on the very brink of the grave, blind and helpless, and now (here the pathos of the appeal was swept under in a burst of angry indignation) do you want me to build and get skinned, skinned? These people are not fit to live in a nice house. Let them go where they can, and let my house stand." In spite of the genuine anguish of the appeal, it was downright amusing to find that his anger was provoked less by the anticipated waste of luxury on his tenants than by distrust of his own kind, the builder. He knew intuitively what to expect. The result showed that Mr. Murphy had gauged his tenants correctly. Many campaigners, such as
Upton Sinclair and
Jacob Riis, pushed for reforms in tenement dwellings. As a result, the
New York State Tenement House Act was passed in 1901 to improve the conditions. More improvements followed. In 1949, President
Harry S. Truman signed the
Housing Act of 1949 to clean slums and reconstruct housing units for the poor.
The Dakota (1884) was one of the first luxury apartment buildings in New York City. The majority, however, remained tenements. Some significant developments in architectural design of apartment buildings came out of the 1950s and 1960s. Among them were groundbreaking designs in
Chicago: the
860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1951),
Marina City (1964) and
Lake Point Tower (1968). In the United States, "tenement" is a label usually applied to the less expensive, more basic rental apartment buildings in older sections of large cities. Many of these apartment buildings are "walk-ups" without an elevator, and some have shared bathing facilities, though this is becoming less common. The slang term "
dingbat" is used to describe cheap urban apartment buildings from the 1950s and 1960s with unique and often wacky façades to differentiate themselves within a full block of apartments. They are often built on stilts, and with parking underneath.
Canada Apartments were popular in Canada, particularly in urban centres like Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Hamilton in the 1950s to 1970s. By the 1980s, many multi-unit buildings were being constructed as
condominiums instead of apartments—both are now very common. In Toronto and Vancouver, high-rise apartments and condominiums have been spread around the city, giving even the major suburbs a skyline. The robustness of the condo markets in Toronto and Vancouver are based on the lack of land availability. The average capitalization rate in the Greater Toronto Area for Q3 2015 hit its lowest level in 30 years: in Q3 2015 it stood at 3.75 per cent, down from 4.2 per cent in Q2 2015 and down almost 50 per cent from the 6.3 per cent posted in Q3 2010.
Australia Apartment buildings in Australia are typically managed by a
body corporate in which owners pay a monthly fee to provide for maintenance of common premises. Many apartments are owned through
strata title. Australian legislation enforces a minimum 2.4m floor-ceiling height which differentiates apartment buildings from office buildings. Australia has a relatively recent history in apartment buildings.
Terrace houses were the early response to density development, though the majority of Australians lived in fully detached houses. Apartments of any kind were legislated against in the
Parliament of Queensland as part of the
Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act 1885. The earliest apartment buildings were in the major cities of
Sydney and
Melbourne as the response to fast rising land values–both cities are home to the two oldest surviving apartment buildings in the country, Kingsclere in
Potts Point, and The Canterbury Flats in
St Kilda.
Melbourne Mansions on
Collins Street, Melbourne (now demolished), built in 1906 for mostly wealthy residents is believed by many to be the earliest. Today the oldest surviving self-contained apartment buildings are in the
St Kilda area including the Fawkner Mansions (1910), Majestic Mansions (1912 as a boarding house) and the Canterbury (1914—the oldest surviving buildings contained flats). Kingsclere, built in 1912 is believed to be the earliest apartment building in Sydney and still survives. During the interwar years, apartment building continued in inner Melbourne (particularly in areas such as St Kilda and
South Yarra), Sydney (particularly in areas such as
Potts Point,
Darlinghust and
Kings Cross) and in Brisbane (in areas such as
New Farm,
Fortitude Valley and
Spring Hill). Post–
World War II, with the
Australian Dream apartment buildings went out of vogue and flats were seen as accommodation only for the poor. Walk-up flats (without a lift) of two to three stories however were common in the middle suburbs of cities for lower income groups. The main exceptions were Sydney and the
Gold Coast, Queensland where apartment development continued for more than half a century. In Sydney a limited geography and highly sought after waterfront views (
Sydney Harbour and beaches such as
Bondi) made apartment living socially acceptable. Since the 1960s, these cities maintained much higher population densities than the rest of Australia through the acceptance of apartment buildings. In other cities, apartment building was almost solely restricted to
public housing.
Public housing in Australia was common in the larger cities, particularly in Melbourne (by the
Housing Commission of Victoria) where a number of high-rise housing commission flats were built between the 1950s and 1970s by successive governments as part of an urban renewal program. Areas affected included
Fitzroy,
Flemington,
Collingwood,
Carlton,
Richmond and
Prahran. Similar projects were run in Sydney's lower socio-economic areas like
Redfern. In the 1980s, modern apartment buildings sprang up in riverside locations in
Brisbane (along the
Brisbane River) and
Perth (along the
Swan River). In Melbourne, in the 1990s, a trend began for apartment buildings without the requirement of spectacular views. As a continuation of the
gentrification of the inner city, a fashion became New York "loft" style apartments (see above) and a large stock of old warehouses and old abandoned office buildings in and around the central business district became the target of developers. The trend of
adaptive reuse extended to conversion of old churches and schools. Similar warehouse conversions and gentrification began in Brisbane suburbs such as
Teneriffe, Queensland and Fortitude Valley and in Sydney in areas such as
Ultimo. As the supply of buildings for conversion ran out, reproduction and modern high-rise apartments followed. This was particularly the case in Melbourne thanks to official planning policies (
Postcode 3000), making the CBD the fastest growing, population wise in the country. Apartment building in the Melbourne metropolitan area has also escalated with the advent of the
Melbourne 2030 planning policy.
Urban renewal areas like
Docklands,
Southbank,
St Kilda Road and
Port Melbourne are now predominantly apartments. There has also been a sharp increase in the number of student apartment buildings in areas such as Carlton in Melbourne. Despite their size, other smaller cities including
Canberra,
Darwin,
Townsville,
Cairns,
Newcastle,
Wollongong,
Adelaide and
Geelong have begun building apartments in the 2000s. Today, residential buildings such as the
Eureka Tower and
Q1 are among the tallest in the country. File:Q1 Q Deck day.JPG|The skyline of the
Gold Coast in
Queensland is dominated by apartments. File:Canterbury flats st kilda.jpg|The Canterbury in
St Kilda, Victoria is one of the earliest surviving apartment buildings in Australia. File:(1)One Central Park.jpg|
One Central Park, Sydney, which features vertical
hanging gardens and sustainable
green design South Korea As of 2019, a majority of Koreans live in apartments. Since the 1980s, the number of apartment residents has soared, and as the number of apartments has steadily increased, apartments have become a representative form of residence where more than half of the Korean population resides. It is the most common house in small and medium-sized cities in Korea, and even these days, apartments are quite visible in rural areas such as remote areas. This is because small and medium-sized construction companies have technology, but they lack the capital to build large complexes in large cities. The better the location, the more expensive the apartment is, and the more expensive the apartment complex built by a large construction company and with a large number of households. Also, even the same type of flat in the same complex is not all of the same price. Due to problems such as the right to sunlight and prospects, the low-rise households on the first and third floors are generally the cheapest, and the higher they go, the more expensive they become. In addition, the price varies depending on other conditions such as the viewing area and the direction of the house, such as south, east, west, and north. The upper floors with a south-facing view are the most expensive. Apartment sales and lease prices are actually the largest and most stable assets owned by a middle-class family in Korea, symbolizing the social status of a family, which forms a class and determines life satisfaction. For this reason, the Korean people have no choice but to react very sensitively to apartment prices. File:South Korea, Incheon, Songdo (03), Sharp Prime View appartments.jpg|An apartment in
Songdo International City,
Incheon File:Apartmentgwangmyeong.jpg|A landscape lined with large apartment complexes (
Gwangmyeong City) ==Notes==