When one looks at the grounds surrounding these three types of single-
family units, one finds that all the grounds are private because they have
been assigned to each unit. Regardless of which type of single-family
building we examine, each has been designed so that each unit has its
own front and rear yard. The front yard of each unit also immediately
abuts the street. If we attempt to categorize the grounds as either private,
semiprivate, semipublic, or public, we would have to conclude that the
rear yards are certainly private because they belong to individual families
and are only accessible from the interior of each unit. The front
yards also belong to individual families, but because they are accessible
from the street as well as from the interior of each unit their character is
different. I have classed them as semiprivate because of this difference, but
some people would say that they are really private.
Looking at the next classification of building—the walkup—one finds
that a radical new element has been introduced that totally changes the
character of both the inside and outside of the building. We now have
circulation areas within the building that are common because they are
shared by a few families. The number of families sharing these common areas depends on how the entrances, corridors, and stairs are distributed within the building.