The purpose of this study is to understand the trends of urban housing in the age of modernization in Western cities since 1970's, and to provide the useful data for diversifying urban housing types in Korea. Although the housing types can be categorized in many ways according to the points of view, this study classifies 11 types by a criterion of urban composition elements. Among 11 urban housing types, one type, free-standing slab structure, has been mainly applied to Korean situation. The reason might be that the free-standing structure type is the most efficient one in terms of land use and block organization, but it results in a monotonic condition of urban housing blocks. Therefore, taking local characteristics and urban contexts in Korea into consideration, the future urban housing design should be developed in different ways of making local life styles possible in them, by adopting various types of Western urban housing precedents.