A tower block, block of flats or apartment block is a high_rise apartment building.
An apartment block in St. Petersburg, UK after the Second World War. Initially, they were welcomed, and their excellent views made them popular living places. Later, as the buildings themselves deteriorated, they grew a reputation for being undesirable low cost housing, and many tower blocks saw rising crime levels, increasing their unpopularity. One response to this was the great increase in the number of housing estates built, which in turn brings its own problems. In the UK, tower blocks particularly lost popularity after the partial collapse of Ronan Point in 1968.
The unpopularity of tower blocks in the UK is in marked contrast to many other countries. In Hong Kong, for example, land prices are so high that almost the entire population lives in high rise apartments. Similarly, high land prices continue to encourage apartment tower construction in New York City (especially Manhattan).
One of the advantages of apartment blocks is that they decrease the costs of infrastructure development (water, power, roads, public transportation) as opposed to low-rise suburban houses.
Buildings containing low numbers of flats or apartments, or which are low-rise buildings such as tenement buildings, are described in apartment building.
Apartment buildings in suburban areas are generally occupied with tenants who either hold low or minimum wage jobs, or families just starting out and not yet able to afford a house mortgage.
The distinction between rental apartments and condominiums is that while rental buildings are owned by a single entity and rented out to many, condominiums are owned individually, while their owners still pay a monthly or yearly fee for building upkeep.
Apartments were popular in Canada, particularly in urban centres like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal in the 1950s to 1970s.
In contrast with low-rise and single-family houses, apartmentblocks accommodate more inhabitants per unit of area of land they occupy and also decrease the cost of municipal infrastructure.
Tower blocks were first built in the UK after the Second World War, in many cases as a "quick-fix" to cure problems caused by crumbling and unsanitary 19th century dwellings or to replace buildings destroyed by aerial bombing.
In the United States tower blocks are commonly referred to as midrise or highrise apartment buildings, depending on their height.
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