An introduction to housing in the United States: its characteristic forms and its environmental implications.

What are the basic requirements for a home? Christine Hunter looks at how legal, cultural, and technological standards have developed, and examines current criteria for a “minimum standard” family home, in three possible forms: freestanding house, attached house, and apartment. She discusses interior spaces, connections to the immediate outdoors, mechanical and plumbing connections, and connections to society. She emphasizes the varied and often conflicting environmental concerns, and examines how homes are grouped and combined with other building types and open spaces into neighborhoods.