Talk:Apartment building

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Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (January 2007)

This article is pretty much an explanation of apartment buildings in North America, which doesn't reflect the rest of the world. It also doesn't list facts you'd expect to have, like what is the largest apartment building in the world, etc. Can anyone expand the article to include those things? -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:18, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Too much about Tenements 2 odd captions 3 History 4 Maisonette 5 introduction - UK

[edit] Too much about Tenements

Most of this should be in an article about Tenements, no?

200,000 a day? so that would mean that there were about 6million people a month?

"the city of New York devised strageties on how to house the heavy flow of immigrants arriving nearly 200,000 a day"

As previous user say, these numbers do not make any sense

It seems like the problem is that someone merged an article on tenements into an article on apartment buildings. At least to Americans, a tenement is a specific type of apartment buildings, that carries a lot of strong negative connotations. I think an article on the history of tenements in the United States would be interesting. I'm not sure what should go into an article on apartment buildings.Lagringa 21:15, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] odd captions

I'm not sure, but I think it's kind of weird that the British photo says 'apartment building' while the American one says 'tenement building'. I couldn't completely tell from the article, but it seems like the word 'apartment' is not used very much in Britain; similarly, 'tenement' is never used to refer to modern housing in America [by which i mean, housing as it relates to current people alive and in the housing market... 'tenement' is an historical thing, not a place where you live today, except that your building maybe was originally a tenement, but you don't actually call it that today].

An overlong way of saying maybe the words should be reversed in the captions?

I'm user 'Mathtinder' but I'm on a hostel's wireless internet [behind a firewall and a giant angry moose or something] and am having trouble signing in. 67.119.199.25 13:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me, not 'reversed', but it would make more sense [to me...?] if the British photo said 'block of flats' and the American one said 'apartment building.'67.119.199.25 13:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

Why not mentoin the roman insulae? they had up to 5 stories!

The article is about housing, not literature! - Adrian Pingstone 22:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a bit harsh, I think there is room for culture in every article. It may be true that this article is about housing but what's the problem with expanding somebody's knowledge a little? 82.17.129.150 (talk) 17:51, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that a mention of Roman insulae would be relevant, since this is an article about apartment buildings and the insulae were a type of apartment building. Most people in ancient Rome lived in them. Apartments aren't a modern invention.Corisande (talk) 04:48, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maisonette

I don't believe a maisonette is really the same as a duplex apartment (and Google agrees with me). I'll change the article to reflect this. Rojomoke 08:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

A maisonette is a flat with its own entrance, usually more than one level. In New York, a duplex is 2-level apartment (and a triplex is 3 levels--these are often parts of converted houses). Everywhere else in the US, a duplex is 2 apartments in one building--one above the other, I think. So a maisonette is something like a NYC duplex, but in NYC, an independent entrance isn't necessary. Alexisr 23:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

In California, at least, a duplex can be a building with two apartments side by side as well as with two apartments one above the other. But in San Francisco, a two-level apartment is also sometime called a duplex, just as it is in New York City. Whyaduck 02:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] introduction - UK

in the UK an apartment building isn't always a tower block - and a tenement doesn't have to be either an apartment nor tower block. They have quite distinct usages.