The reason it wouldn't work in most suburban areas is because most people have these weird ecological disasters they call "lawns." They fret over them. They urge them to grow, and then mow them down (reminds me of one of my exes.. ha!). And they poison the local water with their fertilizers and pesticides. If they just grew some natural areas with large flowering shrubs, trees, and so forth.. having a house with windows wouldn't be such a problem.
The problem is everyone wants to pretend they're in a house out in the country, with rolling fields. Unfortunately, what they get are facsimiles of rolling fields; facsimiles of forests and streams. And day after day they trundle on, with their houses that only face forward (you don't see windows on the sides of houses in the 'burbs... do you? I haven't ever), like blinders to the reality of the fakeness they live in.
Of course, I live in post-industrial bushwick, so I can't really say my surroundings are more natural. But at least they aren't a caricature...
Besides, trailers/double-wides are typically in more rural areas, like the outer rims of suburbia.
Lawns have nothing to do with their privacy failures in a urban/suburban area.
> If they just grew some natural areas with large flowering shrubs, trees,
You've got a very unnatural view of "natural area". With a few exceptions, the natural growth isn't nearly as dense as you suggest. (I now know that you haven't been to most of the US, Australia, Africa.)
> you don't see windows on the sides of houses in the 'burbs... do you? I haven't ever
I'm looking out one. In fact, side windows are actually almost universal. There are a couple of recent styles that don't have them (because they're maximizing ground use) but they're the exception even in new construction in the US.
> Besides, trailers/double-wides are typically in more rural areas, like the outer rims of suburbia.
Not really - I suspect that a majority are in parks and those aren't really "outer rims" of suburbia. (Take San Jose and Sunnyvale CA.)
I guess if you're living out in the desert you've got to worry about not having enough ground cover. But then again, you chose to live in the desert ;)
Funny, almost none of the houses built in my father's neighborhood circa '92 have windows on the side. And they have fairly large yards.
Really? You're basing the "majority of parks" on some small observations about cali? Have you ever driven through georgia, alabama, ohio, north/south carolina, florida, etc?
California is not representative of the US - especially "middle america."
Not at all. I just thought that the Silicon Valley counter-examples were interesting. Most people don't know how common trailer parks are.
> Have you ever driven through georgia, alabama, ohio, north/south carolina, florida, etc?
I haven't driven through the carolinas or georgia, but the rest, yes. I've lived in the midwest, was born in the "mid central", and have driven through all that plus most of the west and part of the northeast.
I do apologize for not having a current count on the number of my relatives who currently live in "manufactured housing", but feel free to assume what ever you'd like from the fact that the number in the past is >0.
I'm still waiting for any support for the assertion that ugly houses are harmful to survival.
Here you go.
http://www.amazon.com/Aesthetics-Well-Being-Health-Architect...
(Review was one of the first results on Google for "environmental aesthetics affecting health"... Did you research this question before you posed it?)