A common house in Germany -- row houses, three or four to a row. There are four in the photo to the left, you can see each has a small backyard portion. The right photo shows one of the houses, with a door opening on the patio, two windows upstairs, and a roof window (the apartment to the right has a larger roof window). Although these appear small, inside they are very nice. The houses are built so that they do not share a wall, even though they are connected. That sound proofs them and adds privacy. The inside, again, is very efficiently designed and has a roomy feel. Such a house costs upwards of $225,000, it's not cheap. The main reason is the cost of the land, plus they tend to use more expensive materials. Our houses are often Chevys, the Germans build BMWs. A Wohngebiet, or little suburb will have a number of such houses, a shopping center, usually an S-Bahn stop (here you can go either into Cologne or Duesseldorf easily), and playgrounds and schools.