The ones in that first picture up top don't look like 10 feet apart. In fact I wonder why they even bothered with windows.
I live in an older house, as do my neighbors, so on 40x100 small lots, there is 15-20 feet on one side, and 30 ft on the other. My house sits closest to the street, one neighbor is set back a few feet, and another neighbor is on the backside of their property. We are close but don't bump into each other.
But the newer houses in my neighborhood have 6 feet in between them, no more or no less. They are all pressed up against the street and extend to just 36 inches shy of the back neighbor. I was a landscaper for 20 years and in the last ten I saw this trend and had to work with that exact 36 inches and planned accordingly. The preciseness of the houses having to be 36 inches from both sides adds to the uniformity and eventually institutionalized look.
What I can't figure out, is unless the house is all out red brick, which is rather rather rare, what I see in my neighborhood that came in during the 90s and just before the recession were concrete/stucco and always a shade of tan. I don't know if this is a building code thing or just the cheapest standard paint color.
Being on the coast in Northern California, and a part of Al Gore's eco-zone he championed as VP, we had great looking coastlines and homes that didn't interfere that much. But during the time he was VP in his second term, McMansions started littering the coast next to the beaches, and to add insult to injury, the trees were mostly cut down. Basically think of a massive US Army base next to the coast if you want a picture. Just a few different colors and some more designs in the architecture would combat that, but developers were hungry to build many houses, all the same, at the same time to cut costs.
When I approached a contractor, I asked him why he did this. He told me, at least where I live, he doesn't cut a profit until his 11th house each year. When he buys lumber or supplies, he does so in huge bulk, thus the uniform look.
So from a business point of view, I understand his predicament. I now make skateboards and unless I make a certain amount of them, there is no profit. There is tremendous pressure to use the cheapest suppliers who usually give the least amount of choices. This is also true of skate/surf clothing. If there is a skate/surf equivalent of the McMansions' uniformity, look at Pac Sun or Zumiez stores. It's like the same store everywhere. I just wish it didn't have to happen with the houses we live in.
