Welcome to Green Usonia

This is a blog about affordable and sustainable housing. I have chosen Usonia because I am aficiando of Frank Lloyd Wright and his architecture. He attempted to create an affordable housing community around the time of the Depression. However, due to the high level of craftsmanship for the interior spaces, they did not end up as affordable as originally conceived. The houses were on the smaller side with numerous hand-crafted built-in components and were typically boxy, but stylish. They were made with local building materials and as a geologist, I loved this aspect of his designs. Usonia was supposed to be what Levittown, New York was - affordable, middle class housing. But Levittown was anything but stylish.

I have chosen Green for the obvious reason that it is clearly a keyword for search engines, when searching anything regarding environmental, sustainable, energy efficient, etc. I liked the two words together as they connote an energy efficient, stylish housing.

To me they portray a green living community. The community would have active and passive solar arrays. They would be heated and cooled with geothermal heat pumps. They would have small vertical windmills. They would have small foot prints - square footage and carbon emissions. They would be unique in design, not builder cookie cutter homes. There would be gardens and native landscaping.

I would encourage anyone who looks into this blog to please feel free to ask questions and make suggestions. I want this to be educational for the reader. Thank you.

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