I have lived in houses in many areas of the United States and Puerto Rico. The houses in Puerto Rico have a tendency to be designed utilizing the prevailing breezes to a maximun. Even though most houses are built of reinforced concrete, the placement of windows provide for cross-ventilation throughout. Even though this is in the tropic, just a few have central air conditioning and most have window air conditioning units, specially in the bedrooms.
In Baltimore, MD and in Boston, MA I used to live in row houses or apartments with marble front steps and most had 2 or 3 floors and a basement for storage, the supervisor's
place and the the heating furnance. Again, cross ventilation was the plan of the designs with hardly any house having air conditioning.