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 Changing Living Patterns


 By WILLIAM T. ARNETT, AIA
 President, Florida Association of Architects


 Our friends the suburban house-
 builders, that segment of the con-
 struction industry whose speculative
 activities are so intimately identified
 with what President Lyndon Johnson
 calls "the despoilation of the sub-
 urbs," seem to be in trouble.
 Like King Canute, they are caught
 up in the relentless tide of change
 sweeping over our world, transform-
 ing our lives and our living patterns.
 And, like King Canute, they are not
 prepared to accommodate change.
 They are discovering to their dis-
 may that a home is not necessarily a
 house. They are realizing, for ex-
 ample, that 33 per cent of all dwell-
 ing units built in this country last
 year were apartments, and that an-
 other 10 per cent were mobile units
 built in a factory and transported
 on their own wheels.
 They are discovering, as are their
 financial backers, that the public is
 becoming more knowledgeable about
 design, and that people are no longer
 satisfied with a house whose only
 criterion for excellence is "Will it
 sell?" rather than the infinitely more
 important "Is it liveable?"
 They are discovering, as are hard-
 pressed urban governments, that
 along with houses people require re-
 lated things-goods, services, schools,
 churches, parks, transportation in
 short, a way of life.

 Confusion of Means
 For some strange reason, our
 friends seem bent on alienating the
 one group conceivably able to help
 them solve their problem-the design
 professions.
 For 50 years Florida has had an
-orderly procedure, through Chapter


467 of the Florida Statutes, for evalu-
ating the qualifications of those who
engage "in the planning or design ...
of buildings for others." This pro-
cedure is still operative. And any
person who aspires to design build-
ings for others ought, in the public
interest, to seek such evaluation.
 But, if newspaper reports are to be
relied upon, our friends seem bent on
changing the law in the 1965 session
of the Florida Legislature in a futile
attempt to confer on themselves abil-
ities which they do not possess. Be-
cause they know how to build, they
reason that they know how to design;
because some know how to draw,
they reason that all know what to
draw.
 How We Live
 We live in a crucial era of change
in our urban way of life, for vast
disintegrating and destructive forces
are loose in the world. We make a
fatal mistake in the construction in-
dustry if we assume that the design
and construction of dwellings will
remain static in a world of change.
 To assume that the problem is
simply a matter of houses versus
apartments is pernicious over-simpli-
fication. The fact is that new forms
of housing are springing up across
the land because we are seeking new
living patterns just as we are seeking
new social and economic patterns.
 Many people, of course, will still
seek single-family houses in the sub-
urbs-hopefully better than the ones
now generally available. But many
others will move into rehabilitated
row houses in the city. Some will live
in new apartments in the city. Some
will live in new town houses or in
atrium houses in both places. Some
will live in entirely new towns, sev-
eral of which have been built with a
hundred more in the planning stage.
Still others will live in special com-
munities of various kinds.


 What are the seemingly irresistible
forces that are changing our living
patterns?

 Forces for Change
 Chief among these compelling
forces are explosive growth and shift-
ing household patterns, a dramatic
upward spiral in the economy, a
revolution in technology, and a new
concept of what constitutes good
urban living. These seem destined
to make tremendous differences in
the kind of dwellings it is sensible to
design, smart to build, and prudent
to finance.
 The most important single fact
about how we live today is that there
are more of us than ever before-
194 million. The explosive growth of
our population now produces about
1 million new households a year. By
1975 it is estimated that we will
produce 1.5 million new households
a year, and 2.2 million a year by the
end of the century. This means that
we will need to produce dwellings
two or three times as fast just to
keep up with the population explo-
sion.
 Another important factor is the
relative gains made by two distinct
categories of people-the young mar-
ried and the elderly. The young
marrieds have special and obvious
characteristics which make apartment
living desirable. Moreover, persons
over 65 years of age-who now com-
prise about 15 per cent of our popu-
lation-have somewhat similar needs.
 It is only in the middle years-less
than half of the total years of mar-
ried life when the single-family
suburban house really makes much
sense. And even then, if the lot is
too big or too small, the traditional
single-family dwelling can be a liabil-
ity to homebuyer and community
alike.
 (Continued on Page 4)