The alternative is that not everything needs to be either a skyscraper or a single family home. The phenomenon is called “missing middle housing”, even has a wiki article you can read. Some people need to live in a flat due to not being able to afford a house. Property value would drop if middle housing became a thing - because developers wouldn’t be able to scalp you on a house you need to have, because you could just get a cheap flat instead. Living in a 6-flat building is an entirely different thing from leaving in a huge block of flats too.
That’s interesting. While there are some outliers, there are only really 2 types of “urban” areas I’ve seen across the US. The single family/town home neighborhood and the apartment/businesses neighborhood. That’s pretty broad, of course, but it covers a lot of it. Perhaps if there was more variety things would be better. I still think I’d like to move out of the city, personally, I’m burnt out on people.
Some of the best neighborhoods I’ve seen/lived in in America have been neighborhoods that were built ~100 years ago when zoning didn’t really restrict things. You’d end up with mansions next to smaller homes next to duplexes and apartments. Some of the mansions end up divided into multi-unit housing. A person can be born in the neighborhood, and live their whole life there moving into different housing types as they need to. You can end up with greater social cohesion across age and socioeconomic ranges. If a kid from a working class family grows up in an apartment across the street from a wealthy kid, they will have more social mobility than of they were in segregated neighborhoods.
To add to this, the ask isn’t to build more apartments, the ask is to LET US
Single Family Zoning makes higher density housing illegal. If there are people who WANT to live in apartments they don’t have that freedom because it’s illegal in so much of the US.
No one wants to force you to live in an apartment, we just want to be able to choose to if we want to. let the market decide if we want houses or apartments
The alternative is that not everything needs to be either a skyscraper or a single family home. The phenomenon is called “missing middle housing”, even has a wiki article you can read. Some people need to live in a flat due to not being able to afford a house. Property value would drop if middle housing became a thing - because developers wouldn’t be able to scalp you on a house you need to have, because you could just get a cheap flat instead. Living in a 6-flat building is an entirely different thing from leaving in a huge block of flats too.
Like half of Europe lives like this.
That’s interesting. While there are some outliers, there are only really 2 types of “urban” areas I’ve seen across the US. The single family/town home neighborhood and the apartment/businesses neighborhood. That’s pretty broad, of course, but it covers a lot of it. Perhaps if there was more variety things would be better. I still think I’d like to move out of the city, personally, I’m burnt out on people.
Yeah its a major problem in the US.
Wanting a bigger, more spread out home is totally reasonable.
Townhomes, for the US.
Wait, I’m stupid and didn’t read it all. I’m seeing a pattern of mistakes on my end.
Some of the best neighborhoods I’ve seen/lived in in America have been neighborhoods that were built ~100 years ago when zoning didn’t really restrict things. You’d end up with mansions next to smaller homes next to duplexes and apartments. Some of the mansions end up divided into multi-unit housing. A person can be born in the neighborhood, and live their whole life there moving into different housing types as they need to. You can end up with greater social cohesion across age and socioeconomic ranges. If a kid from a working class family grows up in an apartment across the street from a wealthy kid, they will have more social mobility than of they were in segregated neighborhoods.
San Francisco has a bunch of mixed stuff.
To add to this, the ask isn’t to build more apartments, the ask is to LET US
Single Family Zoning makes higher density housing illegal. If there are people who WANT to live in apartments they don’t have that freedom because it’s illegal in so much of the US.
No one wants to force you to live in an apartment, we just want to be able to choose to if we want to. let the market decide if we want houses or apartments