Workers'-cottage and minimal-bungalow districts in Oakland and Berkeley, California, 1870-1945

Abstract

Case studies in West Oakland and West Berkeley, California - blue-collar districts built between 1870 and 1945 in the San Francisco Bay Area - exemplify two contrasting sets of urban forms. Within each set, house types and block plans share similar spatial rules. Workers' cottages and workers'-cottage districts, typically begun up to 1900, rely on mixed uses and very little spatial specialization, with ad hoc additions to the dwellings, varied street setbacks and lot lines, mixed land uses, and very little uniformity. In contrast, the dwellings and blocks of minimal-bungalow districts, typically built between 1900 and 1945, are constructed all at once and in a permanent form, with interior spaces that are specialized, hierarchical, socially zoned, and separated by hallways; the blocks have uniform setbacks and lots, and restrictive covenants. The differences between these two forms illustrate closely-intertwined oppositions of twentieth-century modernity that North Americans are still debating: the desirability of urban form based on individual decision-making rather than official control of experts; the benefits of mixture and overlapping uses rather than uniformity and hierarchical separation; and the tensions between obviously temporary urban surroundings on the one hand and visually finished, permanent forms and more predictable real estate values on the other. © International Seminar on Urban Form, 2004.