Brisbane has a lower inner city population density than Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne. The lower population density reflects the fact that most of Brisbane's housing stock formerly consisted of detached houses. Early legislation decreed a minimum size for residential blocks resulting in few terrace houses being constructed. The high density housing that did exist came in the form of miniature Queenslander-style houses which resemble the much larger traditional styles but are sometimes only 1/4 the size. Commonly they were called "workers cottages". Many of the residences in the area are still the original and distinctive workers cottages, which are frequently built on stumps owing to the steep nature of their blocks. Most of the blocks are 16 perch (405 square metres) in size though 24 perch (607 square metres) and 32 perch (809 square metres) are common though typical to all blocks the houses tend to be at the front of the block close to the street. There has been a tendency, mainly by real estate agents for selling purposes to label these houses "Queenslanders" and though they do exist in the area the vast majority of houses are the small wooded 2 or 3 bedroom "workers cottages" with front verandas. These houses are all wood as the material was cheap in south east Queensland. The houses usually had "hopper" windows, high ceilings, vertical internal "VJ" wall boards and wooden floors covered in linoleum floor covering. They were usually on wooden stumps with wooden vertical palings between the stumps. The height of the stumps, and how high off the ground the house was depended not so much on utilising the underneath of the house area but rather on the angle of the block or how likely the area was to flood. The houses were also raised to allow air to circulate freely underneath thereby reducing the internal temperature of the house in the summer months. Roofs were traditionally of corrugated iron.