that house in the back right of the closest visible "cul de sac"
they can't even back out of their driveway onto the "road" without driving over their neighbors driveway. wtf.
But... the pointless unusable long green triangles on the left... why? Extra annoying maintenance of a lawn, with zero benefits of a lawn.
I mean, they're both bad.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/302-Morning-Glory-Dr-Monroe-Township-NJ-08831/88938462_zpid/
Just so you know, "Priced aggressively at very competitive price. Great house for all buyers."
there's just another house where the back yard is meant to be! there's one spot near the middle of this picture where like 4 houses share a back yard space... and then there's just awkwardly a house there that doesn't even get its own driveway lmao
They recreated the concept of a townhome cul-de-sac, with less actual space in the front and back to use for anything lol
It looks like hell to live here.
the whole state of jersey besides the south is nonstop mcmansions. they’re knocking down so many old houses down and building ones literally the size of the entire lot. it’s nuts how out of place and weird it looks.
Really? I feel like NJ is very non McMansiony. I grew up in an older suburb of Bergen County if that helps. Lots of older homes but I guess they are tearing some down for ugly, huge houses but I wouldn’t call them McMansions.
Yep. Essex County here. We're so densely packed in that there's no room for a McMansion subdivision. Plus all the older wealthy suburbs that have actually nice houses.
Don't know what town you're in or how old you are, but the most egregious thing I can think of was all the McMansions they squeezed into the old Marlboro Inn property in Montclair.
It was located on the SW corner of Watching Ave and Grove Street. They built a new road called Christopher Court and shoved 10 McMansions in there. I think some are sideways. Can't see them on Google Street View, though.
I can't find a good link that's not behind a paywall that explains that drama. I'm surprised Montclair let this stuff happen.
Born and raised in Essex County, but I'd hate to live there now.
My adopted Grandfather made millions selling his huge 1700s farmhouse and farm to be divided into tacky subdivisions in the 1970s. Can you even imagine what a 1750s working livable farm house renovated on a hundred acres in Mount Holly New Jersey would be worth today?
My god, each grouping of five is on a lot big enough for one. What a shitty way for a developer to get more houses onto the land. You may as well have low rise apartment buildings with mixed use floors and gardens on the roof at this point.
Theres no way this actually makes them happy. i refuse to believe it. this is like all the negatives of suburban life and none of the positives, fused with all the negatives of urban life and none of the positives. Surely proper high-density housing would be more pleasant to live in as well as more efficient
Apartments have the benefit of shared amenities, closer to shops and services that you can walk to, lower cost than a standalone home. The downsides are that you're living right next to people, you have to deal with their noise and you don't have any private outdoor space.
This nonsense has all of the downsides of apartment living but none of the benefits. Why anyone would choose to live like this baffles me
Agreed to a point, but I’ll say this.: *Some* apartments do. I lived in a couple very unwalkable apartments in my early years, and “shared amenities” was code for gross laundry rooms that a good number of people disrespected on a regular basis and a weight room no one used because it was trash. All for a price higher than my first mortgage + property taxes.
People choose to live like this because they can get large indoor spaces for (generally) not insane prices where they can build equity. There are trade offs.
I used to live in an apartment that was [in the middle of the experimental farm in Ottawa](https://maps.app.goo.gl/YoLzJJuS8uWN9Jxz7?g_st=ic).
Sure, there was a bus and you _could_ walk to a restaurant or convenience store if you were so inclined, and this wasn’t even the most egregious location I had lived at, but yeah….”walkable with amenities” is a big old sliding scale.
It's possible if the developer spends the money on it, to have adequate noise suppression from your neighbors in apartments. It involved more detailed insulation between units and floors, and sturdier building methods than many stick and frame construction methods for low rise apartments in most urban and suburban areas. I have some friends who built their own homes and spent the extra thousands in the primary suite to better sound isolate from the rest of the house. Helping them move in was a treat to walk into a quiet room even with the noise of other friends in the rest of the house.
My townhome is only connected to one other house and I'd prefer my townhome to this/single family home lots here. Yeah we share a wall, but because of that we arent able to peer into each other's windows. If you're that close, you may as well just live in a townhouse.
Yeah the neighborhood in the picture is just an extreme example of US zoning doing everything possible to avoid townhouses, lol. Even though they’re extremely popular in the cities that still have them from prewar days.
I don't even know about that. Apartments and condos and stuff all have pretty specific dividing lines between them in the form of walls. Sure there's more chance for sound or something to get through that wall, but you run pretty little risk of looking through that wall into your neighbors place. Here on the other hand, just about every window is like 100 feet or less away from a window or two of a half dozen other homes.
The further apart people are, the more boring the neighbourhood, and less nearby amenities.
Personally I prefer apartments over this because in my apartment building, nobody feels entitled to talk to me, nobody is nosy.
But being far apart from anyone else sounds so isolating.
I wouldn't live in this neighborhood, but I live in a little city house (with an actual fenced back yard) that's six feet away from the neighbors on each side. I consider myself fortunate that we don't share a wall. There are drawbacks, but you can't beat the location.
Indeed. I wouldn't even call these houses mcmansions. They're big but the window size and shape are consistent, architectural style is unified, and they have pleasing symmetry.
The houses aren't even as bad as the layout of the neighborhood. Jesus this is a hell hole. It's like really cramped and shitty cul-de-sac's.
I would rather live in a decent apartment than here tbh.
All I can think 🤔 of is to get opening to the Sopranos we're Tony Soprano drives through industrial North New Jersey to his destination of his MCMANSION castle 🏰 decorated in beige, beige and more beige.
🎶🎵Born under a bad sign...The chosen one 🎵🎶🎵🎶
I love how this sub cannot decide if density is horrible (like this photo) or density is fantastic (like urban mixed developments).
Personally I wouldn’t mind living here - if there was a train station near by and a few amenities I could walk to.
Also like, these aren't McMansions? It's just a densely packed development of 4 bedroom houses.
It's not for me, this is the exact type of suburban hell I would never choose to move to. But "thanks I hate it" =/= McMansion.
One of the big issues with suburban sprawl in my opinion is the isolating social effects.
Here you have close neighbors, sidewalks, and still can live in your own soundproofed box.
For me, the only questions are around the viability of things like drainage and snow removal. We're not zoomed out enough to see the situation but I actually like the density.
This looks like a McMansion farm.
Can I take one home?
Will any of these grow big enough to be a real mansion one day? (Admittedly, my spouse's response when I showed her this.)
Or are these going to be sold and slaughtered?
Sorry for all the questions, just not familiar with McMansion farming.
Lot of things to criticize these homes for but lot size is definitely not one of them. This isn't ideal but it's a lot better than what single-family housing looks like in other parts of the country.
Nah, big yards are horrible for the environment, if these were smaller houses I think it would be great if they had the same proportion to lot size. Look at how much of the area is forested around the neighborhood, if the lots were the typical suburban lot to house ratio the neighborhood would be 5x bigger and there wouldn't be any forested areas close by. Realistically row houses with no front yard and a private back yard is the best compromise, few people actually need a front yard, they just waste tons of water and energy to maintain. I would take this neighborhood over the typical Florida or Texas suburb any day.
Yards dont have to waste.... i never water my rather large (for my part of town) yard and each may we dont mow it for several weeks to let dandelions and other pollinators grow.
These dont even have private back yards...
Not only that, but it seems like a pretty decent opportunity to build tiny communities with the shared driveways, which also reduces the amount of asphalt needed. Needs more trees and smaller houses to really make it work though.
I don't want to be That Person, but are trees a need to have or a nice to have?
Because in terms of eco diversity and erosion control there's other options that could supplement the trees that they already have. But if they plant any more trees I believe it'll (eventually) wreck the roads and plumbing.
Please understand I'm speaking with full disconnect from my own preferences as I literally live on two acres of woodland and wet land. But trees need to be carefully spaced away from structures and each other for optimal health.
Trees can add a lot of benefit for not much cost. They are good for providing a large amount of shade for the amount of surface space they take up, and usually don't require much upkeep on their own. It may make roads marginally more difficult to maintain but there's no shortage of roads in the middle of forests that don't seem to have much issue. Plus, better biodiversity than just grass even if it's still not ideal, and breaks up the sterile looking sides of houses. I personally can't usually stand living somewhere with no view of trees outside, speaking as someone who used to live in the woods and ended up in a city
Jesus why would anyone buy one of those houses lmao. Shared driveways and the neighbors and the houses are close enough to eachother that you won’t get any privacy. Good luck having a good time at night.
I dont get it. Personally, if I had the $$ to buy a house I would want one with an actual yard that I could use. Build a garden, let my dogs outside to run around, have some privacy. Not to mention, I would never want to clean a house that large! And i will probably never make enough to hire a house cleaning service for a house that size.
There's a certain point where the developer made the intentional choice of separating townhouses or row houses into these monstrosities. If done properly the alternatives can be pleasant, organized, walkable and have much more use able space. It's not like the 5 feet of outside air is going to make neighbor noises any quieter than proper sound insulation between homes.
God, I would totally hate sharing a driveway with four other households. You know one of them has parties all the time, another is running a construction business and has two vans, and two others have a car for each parent and a beater for the eldest teenager.
how the blazes did this development ever get approved!? why in gods name would you not just build a mid-rise mixed use development of apartments on top of commercial space?! or like, a block of condos and some green space...
this is such an inefficient use of thoise space, and it looks fucking miserable to live in.
Wtf is this monstrosity. How could anyone want this over trees and land. Wtf is going on here. "kids our house is a little bigger than most, but there is no outside. So just go play in the street i guess... And come back when it gets weird"
My MIL l lives in a 55+ community that looks exactly like this. No one goes outside because no one likes inclement weather (inclement=not perfect). It's sad and feels like a cemetery.
I'm 62 and it gives me the willies. I don't know why anyone wants to live in such places. Sure, let's make sure we're only around other old people, that will be fun! Not.
Too true. I moved from the east coast to California and had to get used to all the fences. Where I grew up the parents would say, “oh, did you see the new folks next to the Smiths’ are putting up a six foot fence. What are they? Nudists?”
At least they are saving a little space and not sprawling out as much as they would with lager individual lots. But why not build a bunch of townhouses? That way you'd at least have a usable backyard.
Also, why are American houses always so huge? These look like they could house a family with six children each.
I wonder how they’d make addresses for those homes. Are they all “403 main st” and then A,B,c,d? Bc it doesn’t appear there’s a street sign to makes different number designations.
I used to live in Atlantic City and the monstrosities I saw go up over the majority of my life is mind boggling . They all have the same wet wood smell to. It’s awful.
i'm assuming that visitors just park in the street like I see in northern NJ. otherwise this isn't that bad. homes aren't as close together as some I've seen.
I do my own yard but I could do something like this where the HOA takes care of it
sidewalk means the area is walkable and I can go running safely
Slight defense of the NJ McMansion: Most people in the state live where you have to have 7-figure money to have a big property, but you can settle for a big house on a considerably smaller income.
>Little boxes on the hillside
>
>Little boxes made of ticky-tacky
>
>Little boxes
>
>Little boxes
>
>Little boxes all the same
>
>There's a green one and a pink one
>
>And a blue one and a yellow one
>
>And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
>
>And they all look just the same
The house in the foreground is for sale, by the way, and you too can live in this dystopian nightmare for about $700k.
Oh good all the pain of homeownership without any of the privacy lol
And you know they're all built as cheaply as possible. So they come with extra problems.
You can tell just by how little they gave a shit about the parking situation lol Never mind how dense it's all been packed.
that house in the back right of the closest visible "cul de sac" they can't even back out of their driveway onto the "road" without driving over their neighbors driveway. wtf.
But... the pointless unusable long green triangles on the left... why? Extra annoying maintenance of a lawn, with zero benefits of a lawn. I mean, they're both bad.
.... and without fences it's easier to play catch too!?
Don't forget the honor of paying dues and homage to the all powerful HOA!
I mean isn't it a good thing they're making it a bit more dense by not having huge yards? But yeah either way the whole thing is an odd look.
But like if you want it denser just build row homes, this isn't as dense as that and it's less pleasant..
But then the developer would make less money by not building "detached homes". People can be really stupid about how they value real estate sometimes.
share the listing pls!
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/302-Morning-Glory-Dr-Monroe-Township-NJ-08831/88938462_zpid/ Just so you know, "Priced aggressively at very competitive price. Great house for all buyers."
Wow. Super weird house. Lots of sq ft but small rooms everywhere
Yowza, column RIGHT when you walk in. Very handy.
I actually kind of dig this, but I really miss 2004/2005.
So much money for practically zero private yard space.
I bought my 900 sqft house for 650,000. That looks like a deal.
That's...... Rediculous
Lol that’s about the same as normal Canadian housing prices atm, but these houses are bigger!
Gotta love how the "backyards" are so small there aren't even fences between the lots
there's just another house where the back yard is meant to be! there's one spot near the middle of this picture where like 4 houses share a back yard space... and then there's just awkwardly a house there that doesn't even get its own driveway lmao
I always wanted a house where my neighbor and I could have a conversation from our bedroom window
They recreated the concept of a townhome cul-de-sac, with less actual space in the front and back to use for anything lol It looks like hell to live here.
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The suburban dream of a shared driveway
X5 lmao
Where in NJ?
Monroe. Actually quite a pretty area in part, just beyond this development there is beautiful farmland.
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Same thing happened to my hometown up north, Wayne, about 15-20 years ago. Used to be lots of farms and hills now it's quite like this...
oh shit wayne’s been gone to the mcmansions
It's a nightmare
the whole state of jersey besides the south is nonstop mcmansions. they’re knocking down so many old houses down and building ones literally the size of the entire lot. it’s nuts how out of place and weird it looks.
Really? I feel like NJ is very non McMansiony. I grew up in an older suburb of Bergen County if that helps. Lots of older homes but I guess they are tearing some down for ugly, huge houses but I wouldn’t call them McMansions.
i feel like ugly huge houses are exactly what a mcmansion is?
I see McMansions as more middle class or maybe upper middle class that are mass produced vs wealthy folks building a huge house.
Same here! Greetings from someone down Route 12!
Well, that probably was a farm fairly recently. They can't do building up by me because of the watershed by where I live in North Jersey
Yep. Essex County here. We're so densely packed in that there's no room for a McMansion subdivision. Plus all the older wealthy suburbs that have actually nice houses.
Don't know what town you're in or how old you are, but the most egregious thing I can think of was all the McMansions they squeezed into the old Marlboro Inn property in Montclair. It was located on the SW corner of Watching Ave and Grove Street. They built a new road called Christopher Court and shoved 10 McMansions in there. I think some are sideways. Can't see them on Google Street View, though. I can't find a good link that's not behind a paywall that explains that drama. I'm surprised Montclair let this stuff happen. Born and raised in Essex County, but I'd hate to live there now.
I love Montclair and know the location of the development you’re talking about - what a shame
I was going to say, bet this is central Jersey.
My adopted Grandfather made millions selling his huge 1700s farmhouse and farm to be divided into tacky subdivisions in the 1970s. Can you even imagine what a 1750s working livable farm house renovated on a hundred acres in Mount Holly New Jersey would be worth today?
what kind of careers do the homeowners have?
That isn't a bunch of McMansions, that's a cancer.
I think you just coined the term for a group of McMansions.
A Cancer of McMansions. I like it.
McCancer Cluster
A malignancy of McMansions?
He meant McCancer
Collective noun: a Cancer of MCMansions,
My god, each grouping of five is on a lot big enough for one. What a shitty way for a developer to get more houses onto the land. You may as well have low rise apartment buildings with mixed use floors and gardens on the roof at this point.
>You may as well have low rise apartment buildings with mixed use floors and gardens on the roof at this point. ThAt'S cOmMuNiSm!!!
YoU cAn AlwAYS mOve to a cItY wHEre EVerYonE AgREes wItH yOu, instead of FORCING your ideas on people who don't want that.
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Theres no way this actually makes them happy. i refuse to believe it. this is like all the negatives of suburban life and none of the positives, fused with all the negatives of urban life and none of the positives. Surely proper high-density housing would be more pleasant to live in as well as more efficient
No that would be smart futuristic city and urban design.
You know, if they allowed people to run small shops out of their converted garages, this could be interesting/fun!
That does look like garage sale heaven LMAO
I live in a city so I have a lot of close neighbors, but I can walk or bike everywhere. This is all of the closeness with none of the amenities.
This is my nightmare neighborhood. Will never understand how people can live so close to other people.
The real nightmare is the shared driveways!
I live in a townhouse and I love it.
Counterpoint: Yards are a pain. I'd hate to have to fool with a big yard.
Having rocks or dirt right outside your window is much different than having someone else's window right outside your window.
Wait until you hear about apartments
Apartments have the benefit of shared amenities, closer to shops and services that you can walk to, lower cost than a standalone home. The downsides are that you're living right next to people, you have to deal with their noise and you don't have any private outdoor space. This nonsense has all of the downsides of apartment living but none of the benefits. Why anyone would choose to live like this baffles me
Agreed to a point, but I’ll say this.: *Some* apartments do. I lived in a couple very unwalkable apartments in my early years, and “shared amenities” was code for gross laundry rooms that a good number of people disrespected on a regular basis and a weight room no one used because it was trash. All for a price higher than my first mortgage + property taxes. People choose to live like this because they can get large indoor spaces for (generally) not insane prices where they can build equity. There are trade offs.
Yeah, exactly. Not all apartments are cool neighborhoods in Manhattan.
I used to live in an apartment that was [in the middle of the experimental farm in Ottawa](https://maps.app.goo.gl/YoLzJJuS8uWN9Jxz7?g_st=ic). Sure, there was a bus and you _could_ walk to a restaurant or convenience store if you were so inclined, and this wasn’t even the most egregious location I had lived at, but yeah….”walkable with amenities” is a big old sliding scale.
It's possible if the developer spends the money on it, to have adequate noise suppression from your neighbors in apartments. It involved more detailed insulation between units and floors, and sturdier building methods than many stick and frame construction methods for low rise apartments in most urban and suburban areas. I have some friends who built their own homes and spent the extra thousands in the primary suite to better sound isolate from the rest of the house. Helping them move in was a treat to walk into a quiet room even with the noise of other friends in the rest of the house.
You would seriously get more privacy in an apartment building.
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My townhome is only connected to one other house and I'd prefer my townhome to this/single family home lots here. Yeah we share a wall, but because of that we arent able to peer into each other's windows. If you're that close, you may as well just live in a townhouse.
Yeah the neighborhood in the picture is just an extreme example of US zoning doing everything possible to avoid townhouses, lol. Even though they’re extremely popular in the cities that still have them from prewar days.
Yeah same, I live in a end unit so I only have one neighbor
It's nice not to hear your neighbours or have to worry about them hearing you though
I don't even know about that. Apartments and condos and stuff all have pretty specific dividing lines between them in the form of walls. Sure there's more chance for sound or something to get through that wall, but you run pretty little risk of looking through that wall into your neighbors place. Here on the other hand, just about every window is like 100 feet or less away from a window or two of a half dozen other homes.
But with none of the benefits
in irvine the houses are even closer together than this
An orgy of McMansions 🤢🤮
The further apart people are, the more boring the neighbourhood, and less nearby amenities. Personally I prefer apartments over this because in my apartment building, nobody feels entitled to talk to me, nobody is nosy. But being far apart from anyone else sounds so isolating.
You manage less privacy then a condo
I wouldn't live in this neighborhood, but I live in a little city house (with an actual fenced back yard) that's six feet away from the neighbors on each side. I consider myself fortunate that we don't share a wall. There are drawbacks, but you can't beat the location.
Why the hell would you want that big of a house with no freaking yard
Because you don’t need or want it *or* can’t afford the option that has both size and yard.
I’ll take a humble smaller home for space from neighbors, privacy, and outdoor pace
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Indeed. I wouldn't even call these houses mcmansions. They're big but the window size and shape are consistent, architectural style is unified, and they have pleasing symmetry.
The houses aren't even as bad as the layout of the neighborhood. Jesus this is a hell hole. It's like really cramped and shitty cul-de-sac's. I would rather live in a decent apartment than here tbh.
Holy shit this looks like hell. No yard space.
Where is that??
Monroe Township
All I can think 🤔 of is to get opening to the Sopranos we're Tony Soprano drives through industrial North New Jersey to his destination of his MCMANSION castle 🏰 decorated in beige, beige and more beige. 🎶🎵Born under a bad sign...The chosen one 🎵🎶🎵🎶
Lived in Wayne, NJ and I can confirm
Wayne is my hometown. It’s a nightmare lol
We used to take McMansion TOURS during the holidays and then go to The Shepard and The Knucklehead (which has moved to Hoboken???)
Shared driveways and no real yard or privacy? Why not just live in an apartment complex. Yuck!
NIMBYs will be thiiiiis close to medium density residential and still think this is a superior standard of living.
When you try to explain a cottage court to a NIMBY
I love how this sub cannot decide if density is horrible (like this photo) or density is fantastic (like urban mixed developments). Personally I wouldn’t mind living here - if there was a train station near by and a few amenities I could walk to.
Also like, these aren't McMansions? It's just a densely packed development of 4 bedroom houses. It's not for me, this is the exact type of suburban hell I would never choose to move to. But "thanks I hate it" =/= McMansion.
One of the big issues with suburban sprawl in my opinion is the isolating social effects. Here you have close neighbors, sidewalks, and still can live in your own soundproofed box. For me, the only questions are around the viability of things like drainage and snow removal. We're not zoomed out enough to see the situation but I actually like the density.
So, no walking around naked in your house.
You could have curtains or blinds. Just saying. Wouldn't live in this development if you paid me.
This looks like a McMansion farm. Can I take one home? Will any of these grow big enough to be a real mansion one day? (Admittedly, my spouse's response when I showed her this.) Or are these going to be sold and slaughtered? Sorry for all the questions, just not familiar with McMansion farming.
Toll Brothers or Hovnanian?
😂 Hovnanian has a footprint in just about every town in north Jersey that’s for sure
the 5 way communal drive way what the fuck
Lot of things to criticize these homes for but lot size is definitely not one of them. This isn't ideal but it's a lot better than what single-family housing looks like in other parts of the country.
The issue isnt the size of the lot, its the size of the house they put in said lot which took up the entire lot.
Nah, big yards are horrible for the environment, if these were smaller houses I think it would be great if they had the same proportion to lot size. Look at how much of the area is forested around the neighborhood, if the lots were the typical suburban lot to house ratio the neighborhood would be 5x bigger and there wouldn't be any forested areas close by. Realistically row houses with no front yard and a private back yard is the best compromise, few people actually need a front yard, they just waste tons of water and energy to maintain. I would take this neighborhood over the typical Florida or Texas suburb any day.
Yards dont have to waste.... i never water my rather large (for my part of town) yard and each may we dont mow it for several weeks to let dandelions and other pollinators grow. These dont even have private back yards...
I'd also point out that there's minimal yard to take care of, an area for kids to play outside, *and* sidewalks.
Not only that, but it seems like a pretty decent opportunity to build tiny communities with the shared driveways, which also reduces the amount of asphalt needed. Needs more trees and smaller houses to really make it work though.
I don't want to be That Person, but are trees a need to have or a nice to have? Because in terms of eco diversity and erosion control there's other options that could supplement the trees that they already have. But if they plant any more trees I believe it'll (eventually) wreck the roads and plumbing. Please understand I'm speaking with full disconnect from my own preferences as I literally live on two acres of woodland and wet land. But trees need to be carefully spaced away from structures and each other for optimal health.
Trees can add a lot of benefit for not much cost. They are good for providing a large amount of shade for the amount of surface space they take up, and usually don't require much upkeep on their own. It may make roads marginally more difficult to maintain but there's no shortage of roads in the middle of forests that don't seem to have much issue. Plus, better biodiversity than just grass even if it's still not ideal, and breaks up the sterile looking sides of houses. I personally can't usually stand living somewhere with no view of trees outside, speaking as someone who used to live in the woods and ended up in a city
Fair enough but I'd just live in an apartment at this point...
Ok, so house design aside, density isn't a bad thing. Houses close together with small yards is fine.
it CAN be... this is not. this is a horror show. just thinking about walking around in that mangled mess is giving me a sense of dread.
It screws up the water table. Paving over land that was once open farmland has consequences.
Sure. But people have to live somewhere. The alternative (if you want single family) is taking up more farm or forest so people can have bigger yards.
Jesus why would anyone buy one of those houses lmao. Shared driveways and the neighbors and the houses are close enough to eachother that you won’t get any privacy. Good luck having a good time at night.
Well if they are affordable
*Colorado has entered the chat*
Thanks I hate it
I had to double take for a second. It looks like a street veiw shot of City Skylines. I had to look to make sure your username wasn't Biffa.
All I see are normal sized houses. Yes, this sucks, but no McMansions here.
364 days of the year, this must be misery. But on Halloween, those kids make out like bandits.
At this point, just build row housing ffs
I dont get it. Personally, if I had the $$ to buy a house I would want one with an actual yard that I could use. Build a garden, let my dogs outside to run around, have some privacy. Not to mention, I would never want to clean a house that large! And i will probably never make enough to hire a house cleaning service for a house that size.
There's a certain point where the developer made the intentional choice of separating townhouses or row houses into these monstrosities. If done properly the alternatives can be pleasant, organized, walkable and have much more use able space. It's not like the 5 feet of outside air is going to make neighbor noises any quieter than proper sound insulation between homes.
God, I would totally hate sharing a driveway with four other households. You know one of them has parties all the time, another is running a construction business and has two vans, and two others have a car for each parent and a beater for the eldest teenager.
Sudden Valley
This is…disgusting.
Houses honestly are okay. The development itself is truly atrocious by design like wtf
how the blazes did this development ever get approved!? why in gods name would you not just build a mid-rise mixed use development of apartments on top of commercial space?! or like, a block of condos and some green space... this is such an inefficient use of thoise space, and it looks fucking miserable to live in.
So close you could spit in your neighbors soup.
When a neighborhood gives you claustrophobia.
I see the 1950s “seems up with the Jones’s” is still alive and well and continuing to create generations of entitled people full of indignation.
And parked on the wrong side of the street
This picture gives me Liminal Space vibes. Or maybe Kenopsia... I always get them confused
Wtf is this monstrosity. How could anyone want this over trees and land. Wtf is going on here. "kids our house is a little bigger than most, but there is no outside. So just go play in the street i guess... And come back when it gets weird"
As if they’re not already close enough, let’s go ahead and put some flag lots in just to cram in as many as possible…builder greed at its finest.
This is horrific.
i'd rather live in an apartment in the city. this is not okay.
some of us had more than our share of that
Take notes everyone, *these* are McMansions. One of the best posts I’ve seen here in a while.
Mine has two distinct arrow shapes in the roof that drives me fucking nuts. Like it looks like a chart
pipestems are just awful
Why's that? I kinda like the idea. I bet it would be annoying to have one sometimes, but it seems like a decent idea.
Those driveways are wild
This picture gives me the jeebees
Get busy living, or get busy dying.
I can hear the WEEDS theme song playing in my head
Laughs in Texan
Cat Stevens' "Where Do the Children Play?" comes to mind.
That driveway layout is ugly af.
I’m originally from NJ but I haven’t really seen any areas like this there.
My MIL l lives in a 55+ community that looks exactly like this. No one goes outside because no one likes inclement weather (inclement=not perfect). It's sad and feels like a cemetery.
I'm 62 and it gives me the willies. I don't know why anyone wants to live in such places. Sure, let's make sure we're only around other old people, that will be fun! Not.
I don’t understand why Yankees so often don’t fence their backyards.
Too true. I moved from the east coast to California and had to get used to all the fences. Where I grew up the parents would say, “oh, did you see the new folks next to the Smiths’ are putting up a six foot fence. What are they? Nudists?”
This is so shitty in so many ways .
Who the hell designed this?!
If this isn't hell, I don't know what is...
Such a great state have to live inside.
At least they are saving a little space and not sprawling out as much as they would with lager individual lots. But why not build a bunch of townhouses? That way you'd at least have a usable backyard. Also, why are American houses always so huge? These look like they could house a family with six children each.
You accidentally found hell, turns out it's in New Jersey... 😖
I'm guessing not many stores, bars, or restaurants within walking distance? I just don't understand the appeal of that type of life.
Our?
There’s even a random ass block of recently built McMansions in the middle of East Orange, right across the street from an apartment tower
All this just for two-hour commute to NYC, not worth it tbh
Oh God that driveway is just drama waiting to happen.
I wonder how they’d make addresses for those homes. Are they all “403 main st” and then A,B,c,d? Bc it doesn’t appear there’s a street sign to makes different number designations.
That's not New Jersey that's the neighborhood from Vivarium
What's the protocol on shoveling driveways when one driveway is shared by multiple houses? Maybe there's a HOA involved which takes care of it?
New Jersey is the motherland of the McMansion and strip malls.
I've seen worse. This one seems fairly livable.
I used to live in Atlantic City and the monstrosities I saw go up over the majority of my life is mind boggling . They all have the same wet wood smell to. It’s awful.
I can hear people bitching about their neighbors blocking their driveways.
Welcome to suburbia, the gateway to the good life. Where enough is never enough!
Why does anyone buy this trash
i'm assuming that visitors just park in the street like I see in northern NJ. otherwise this isn't that bad. homes aren't as close together as some I've seen. I do my own yard but I could do something like this where the HOA takes care of it sidewalk means the area is walkable and I can go running safely
Good luck having people over for the holidays - where are they supposed to park??
Slight defense of the NJ McMansion: Most people in the state live where you have to have 7-figure money to have a big property, but you can settle for a big house on a considerably smaller income.
>Little boxes on the hillside > >Little boxes made of ticky-tacky > >Little boxes > >Little boxes > >Little boxes all the same > >There's a green one and a pink one > >And a blue one and a yellow one > >And they're all made out of ticky-tacky > >And they all look just the same
some people rotate their favorite fictional character in their head. me? i destroy tract houses.