Basia (Barbara) Halliop

(Von Baich 26)

For many centuries, attached houses have been a frequent answer to the question of how to save space and cost when housing city-dwellers. However, although they are the norm in many countries, in Canada, where space has generally been less of a problem, they are historically an exception to the general rule of detached houses. Even today, attached houses make up only approximately a tenth of Canadian homes. More than half of Canadian households live in single detached houses, and the majority of families own, rather than rent, their homes (Statistics). This is not to say, however, that attached and semi-detached houses are not part of our heritage; in certain times and places they were and are built extremely frequently. In the nineteenth century there was a flood of British immigrants who introduced the English idea of row houses to their new country; the streets of many Ontario cities are lined with the results. At this point in history these cities were growing and becoming increasingly industrialized, and while there were no walls constraining the outward growth of the city, travel and transportation were easier when distances were smaller, and city land became more expensive. Speculative building also became common, and row and double houses were favoured as they were cheaper and faster to build. Older colonial cities like Toronto and Kingston are full of working-class and middle-class double houses and row houses that were part of a trend in the second half of the nineteenth century and in the first few years of the twentieth century; similar houses are also seen in some anglophone Montreal neighbourhoods. This group of houses is interesting both for its uniformity and for its variety, and today these homes are still the backgrounds to many lives.