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Housing in the USA
Americans are a mobile nation. The average owner stays in a house only five years, before moving somewhere else. Due to low interest rates, the majority of families in the USA own their own homes. Usually these are separate houses with yards. Houses in US are still very inexpensive compared to Europe.
There is a dark side to families moving so much, and such distances. Family ties are not nearly so strong in the US as in other countries. Some parents and grown children living on opposite coasts may only visit each other twice a year.
LIVING IN THE CITY
Groups of owned apartments in one building (called “condominiums“ or “condos“) are not so popular as in the rest of the world. Usually they only are common in downtown areas. They are popular with people who want to buy their own home but don’t want to maintain a yard or a garden. Condominiums often have a lot of communal amenities, such as laundry room, swimming pools and fitness rooms. Young people, especially when they are single, normally can’t afford to buy a house or a condo right away. They usually live in rented apartments. There are apartments in older buildings, especially in big cities, but there are also a lot of modern apartment complexes. These apartments are almost always furnished, usually very nicely.
AMERICAN HOUSES
Houses vary greatly, but the dominant style of the last 30 years has been the ranch-style house. Houses are usually made of wood and built by carpenters. In the southern states, where wood is scarcer, brick and stucco houses are much more common than in the northern states. Modern stucco houses are often built in a Mexican style. Victorian houses are painted in bright colors, specially blue.
NEW WAYS OF LIVING
Many retired people move into mobile homes, which are usually permanently located in mobile home parks. They offer inexpensive housing that is easy to take care of, especially since they have little or no yard space. Americans are always willing to try something new, especially if it has to do with living alongside nature. Some people are going back to the housing of the earliest settlers and building log houses. Today they usually use a kit, which means that the logs are pre-cut. Since someone discovered that the shape of the geodesic dome is extremly energy efficient, many people have built their homes like this.
IN AN AMERICAN HOME
GADGETS – Americans like gadgets to make a job easier or quicker to do. There is an incredible variety of gadgets in the American home. In the kitchen you can find a garbage compactor that squeezes garbage into small cubes and neatly packs it into bags; a refrigerater that dispenses iced water and ice cubes without having to open the door; and a sink with a three faucets – a normal one, a water hose with a spray nozzle for washing dishes, and one with its own small heater that gives boiling water. Some houses have a small computer system that controls all the different electronic gadgets. It will turn the heating on, switch the light and the radio on, and make the coffee.
THE LIVING ROOM – is usually used for more formal occasions such as entertaining guests.
THE KITCHEN – this room with all its appliances and gatgets, also has an informal eating area where the family usually takes its meals.
THE LAUNDRY ROOM – this is where the washer and dryer are kept and used.
THE DINING ROOM – is also used for formal occasions when there is company for dinner. The best china and silver are used in this room.
THE FAMILY ROOM – is a large room for the whole family where they watch television, play games, listen to music, do crafts and exercise. It is the most important room in an American house. It is the hub of activity.
THE BEDROOM – It is not uncommon for each member of the family to have their own bedroom. People like to have their own space. Many bedrooms have a television and a telephone as well as exercise equipment and a study area with a desk. Americans like to have things neat and tidy, or at least out of sight.
THE BATHROOM – Newer homes have two and a half bathrooms. The main bathroom is for everyone’s use. The second bathroom is usually off the master bedroom and is reserved for the adults using this room. Half a bedroom is a toilet and a sink, usually used by guests. Showers and tubes are becoming quite sophisticated. Americans do like showers – with lots of water pressure – because they are quick. Showers often have jacuzzi heads which give a massage while washing.
A family with an average income can usually afford to live in a nice house with all the necessary amenities that are expected in any civilized nation. The utility bills, such as electricity, telephone and gas are very affordable and do not cause a significant financial burden to the home owner.
POOR PEOPLE
The US government built huge apartment buildings for the poor in the 1950s and 1960s, mostly in the inner cities. These proved a failure. The poor frequently destroyed their apartments, so the maintenance cost was very high. Crime in such “housing projects“ , as they are called, became famous, with gangs shooting at each other to control illegal drug trade. Most of these buildings were demolished. US government now pays homeowners to house the poor, if they will do it. The same problems are still there, and few of them will agree to do that.
In urban areas the division between “the upscale neighborhoods“ and the“slums“or “ghettos“, as they are called, can be only a couple of blocks and is extremely drastic. Part of crime in America is committed by minorities, espacially by African-American or Latino minorities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_housing
Rural housing in the United States
The lack of affordable housing in rural areas of the United States continues to be a critical issue and concern. Factors that can affect affordable rents and home ownership opportunities in Rural America include: lower income levels, urban sprawl pushing housing costs up, loss of high paying jobs and lack of access to credit.
Though the American Housing Survey (AHS) "Homeownership rates increased for virtually all racial and ethnic groups, income groups, regions, and rural and urban areas during the 1990s." However, according to the US Housing Market Conditions, 2nd quarter, 2007 report by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, "Housing affordability worsened as sales prices of existing homes increased and mortgage interest rates increased. Housing market performance was weak in the second quarter of 2007, with generally falling production levels and weak existing home sales. The exceptions are the increase in new home sales and the slight increase in housing starts. Inventories of new and existing homes available for sale continue at very high levels, with enough houses available to last nearly 8 months. The home ownership rate declined to 68.2 percent in the second quarter of 2007."
Programs that are addressing the needs of rural housing can be seen through the United States Department of Agriculture’s, Rural Housing Service. Other assistance is available through the Housing Assistance Council which is a non-profit organisation. In the United States, "the Housing Assistance Council (HAC) has been helping local organizations build affordable homes in rural America since 1971. HAC emphasizes local solutions, empowerment of the poor, reduced dependence, and self-help strategies. HAC assists in the development of both single- and multi-family homes and promotes home-ownership for working low-income rural families through a self-help, "sweat equity" construction method. The Housing Assistance Council offers services to public, non-profit, and private organisations throughout the rural United States. HAC also maintains a special focus on high-need groups and regions: Indian country, the Mississippi Delta, farmworkers, the Southwest border colonias, and Appalachia.”
The United States Department of Agriculture researches and compiles data sources for rural areas of the United States, through the Economic Research Service, as seen in their article, "One in Four Nonmetro Households are Housing Stressed,” where it indicates that, "Of the Nation’s 2,000-plus nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) counties, 302 are defined as housing stressed." It also states, "The principal component of housing stress is high housing expenses relative to income...” The United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library’s, Rural Information Center’s Housing page also provides additional resources for rural housing within the United States and works with rural communities and citizens to assist them in housing information needs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburb

SUBURB
North America[edit]
In the United States and Canada, suburb can refer either to an outlying residential area of a city or town or to a separate municipality or unincorporated area outside a town or city.
United States[edit]
In the 20th century, many suburban areas began to see independence from the central city as an asset. In some cases, white suburbanites saw self-government as a means to keep out people who could not afford the added suburban property maintenance costs not needed in city living. Federal subsidies for suburban development accelerated this process as did the practice of redlining by banks and other lending institutions.[21] In some cities such as Miami and San Francisco, the main city is much smaller than the surrounding suburban areas, leaving the city proper with a small portion of the metro area's population and land area. Cleveland, Ohio is typical of many American central cities; its municipal borders have changed little since 1922, even though the Cleveland urbanized area has grown many times over.[citation needed] Several layers of suburban municipalities now surround cities like Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Houston, New York City, San Francisco, Sacramento, Atlanta, Miami, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C..
Suburbs in America have a prevalence of usually detached[22] single-family homes.[23]
They are characterized by: * Lower densities than central cities, dominated by single-family homes on small plots of land – anywhere from 0.1 acres[24] and up – surrounded at close quarters by very similar dwellings. * Zoning patterns that separate residential and commercial development, as well as different intensities and densities of development. Daily needs are not within walking distance of most homes. * A greater percentage of whites and lesser percentage of citizens of other ethnic groups than in urban areas. However, Black suburbanization grew between 1970 and 1980 by 2.6% as a result of central city neighborhoods expanding into older neighborhoods vacated by whites.[25][26][27] * Subdivisions carved from previously rural land into multiple-home developments built by a single real estate company. These subdivisions are often segregated by minute differences in home value, creating entire communities where family incomes and demographics are almost completely homogeneous.[citation needed]. * Shopping malls and strip malls behind large parking lots instead of a classic downtown shopping district. * A road network designed to conform to a hierarchy, including culs-de-sac, leading to larger residential streets, in turn leading to large collector roads, in place of the grid pattern common to most central cities and pre-World War II suburbs. * A greater percentage of one-story administrative buildings than in urban areas. * Compared to rural areas, suburbs usually have greater population density, higher standards of living, more complex road systems, more franchised stores and restaurants, and less farmland and wildlife.
By 2010 suburbs increasingly gained people in racial minority groups, as many members of minority groups became better educated, more affluent, and sought more favorable living conditions compared to inner city areas; many white Americans also moved back to city centers. Many major city downtowns (such as Downtown Miami, Downtown Detroit, Center City Philadelphia or Downtown Los Angeles) are experiencing a renewal, with large population growth, residential apartment construction, and increased social, cultural, and infrastructural investments. Better public transit, proximity to work and cultural attractions, and frustration with suburban life and gridlock have attracted young Americans to the city centers.[28]