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The title doesn't seem to match the contents. It seems like "Tiny flats might take over Sao Paulo" might be more appropriate. Personally, as someone who owns a

The title doesn't seem to match the contents. It seems like "Tiny flats might take over Sao Paulo" might be more appropriate. Personally, as someone who owns a property development company in Latin America, I can't ever see this becoming a major trend. If it is in fact becoming popular and not a one-off architectural/engineering/artistic effort, then it's really just exploitation and profit maximization and not something that is culturally wanted or a consequence of the local economies.

deleted 7y ago
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barry-cotter 7y ago
If it becomes popular it is a consequence of the local economies. People may not want these flats but they want them more than the alternative they declined to get them. Better, for some, to live in a closet in a desirable area, than in a more spacious apartment two hours travel from where they actually want to be. I’ve lived six to a room in Dublin city centre and had my own room in a house an hour from it and I’d pick the first over the second again if I was single and budget constrained. Closet apartments/SROs/dorms/flophouses would be superior again but if building housing is illegal it won’t be built and the poor will be unable to live in areas reserved for the middle and upper classes.
- stevenjohns 7y ago
  I don't think it's directly a consequence of the local economies, moreso a consequence of bad town planning. Heritage town planning use to allow 3m * 15m houses with no setback. Many better-planned towns eventually introduced more complex legislation to stop this. In lots of parts of Latin America they haven't. Today, in many parts of Colombia, you can take a 150m2 block and build six (!) floors on it provided you have just 10m frontage. So instead of expanding outwards, the cities just became a lot denser, and economics forced up the price up of the land because the land potential is so high. What it takes is a gutsy mayor to implement policies such as requiring at least 1m side setback on houses and 3m for apartments, having caps on the floor-space ratio to 50% instead of 98%, not allowing subdivisions on lands that have less than 15m frontage or 600m2 total area etc. This would basically see the housing market crash - lots of people will lose lots of money. But its a necessary evil. The other angle to this is welfare being given based on the area you live in. Instead of housing support (in the form of tax and utility cost concessions) being distributed based on someone's personal financial situation, the means-test is based on the land classification that the property is built on. The land classification doesn't change whether the house is old or new, or if you build an apartment block on it. Which basically forces higher density in areas with better tax and utility cost concessions - aka poorer areas. In Colombia, this means that buying land in the highest-class areas costs as much - or in many cases less - than middle-class areas. This also introduced an almost caste-like system where people would only hang out from people from their own classification and would look down on people in lower classifications. I appreciate shared-housing is a thing in Dublin (it is in Sydney too, and I have similar feelings to you about it) but the situation in many parts of Latin America exists for somewhat different reasons.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    > What it takes is a gutsy mayor to implement policies such as requiring at least 1m side setback on houses and 3m for apartments, having caps on the floor-space ratio to 50% instead of 98%, not allowing subdivisions on lands that have less than 15m frontage or 600m2 total area etc. This would basically see the housing market crash - lots of people will lose lots of money. But its a necessary evil. What you propose is a giant subsidy to middle class life at the expense of poor people. This would take land that currently houses poor people and make that illegal. It also bans building a house with a courtyard on a lot below a certain size. This wouldn’t help poor people. It would just force them to commute to their work from further away. The housing support system described is particularly stupid but housing support doesn’t generally help anyway. The money just ends up in property holder’s or landowners’ pockets, whether in increased land prices or higher rental prices. The only way to decrease prices is by increasing supply, whether of land or housing.
    - stevenjohns 7y ago
      > What you propose is a giant subsidy to middle class life at the expense of poor people. The "poor" people are extremely poor to the point that you cannot comprehend. And they have to stay there and live there for their entire lives because the current system forces them to. It is impossible for them to move out because of how unaffordable the cities are and how heavily the system is rigged against them. They have nothing. These people are already commuting long distances and already live in unregulated, unmarked ghettos. Here[0] is a photo of one of those places I took back in March so you understand the extent of it. The only people who "lose" here are the current land owners of legal properties. Renters will end up with lower rent because housing will rapidly devalue to a tenth of its original value - every single house will stop being the foreign investment opportunity that it currently is. > This would take land that currently houses poor people and make that illegal. Clearly it's not retroactively applied. Town planning and zoning almost never is. > It also bans building a house with a courtyard on a lot below a certain size. I mean, I guess? But it also forces properties to have back and front yards, as well as side access, instead of being 100% concrete built wall-to-wall through to the footpath. > This wouldn’t help poor people. It would just force them to commute to their work from further away. I'm not sure how it would do anything else other than help poor(er) people and allow them to start living inside expanding cities rather than living on the extreme outskirts. [0] https://i.imgur.com/b2AKhfJ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/b2AKhfJ.jpg
dalore 7y ago
It's basically dormitory style housing, but planned for adults/workers. I would use something like this for sure in other countries, like London. Instead of having to go into town every day, go in Monday and come out Friday.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

barry-cotter 7y ago

If it becomes popular it is a consequence of the local economies. People may not want these flats but they want them more than the alternative they declined to get them. Better, for some, to live in a closet in a desirable area, than in a more spacious apartment two hours travel from where they actually want to be. I’ve lived six to a room in Dublin city centre and had my own room in a house an hour from it and I’d pick the first over the second again if I was single and budget constrained. Closet apartments/SROs/dorms/flophouses would be superior again but if building housing is illegal it won’t be built and the poor will be unable to live in areas reserved for the middle and upper classes.

stevenjohns 7y ago
I don't think it's directly a consequence of the local economies, moreso a consequence of bad town planning. Heritage town planning use to allow 3m * 15m houses with no setback. Many better-planned towns eventually introduced more complex legislation to stop this. In lots of parts of Latin America they haven't. Today, in many parts of Colombia, you can take a 150m2 block and build six (!) floors on it provided you have just 10m frontage. So instead of expanding outwards, the cities just became a lot denser, and economics forced up the price up of the land because the land potential is so high. What it takes is a gutsy mayor to implement policies such as requiring at least 1m side setback on houses and 3m for apartments, having caps on the floor-space ratio to 50% instead of 98%, not allowing subdivisions on lands that have less than 15m frontage or 600m2 total area etc. This would basically see the housing market crash - lots of people will lose lots of money. But its a necessary evil. The other angle to this is welfare being given based on the area you live in. Instead of housing support (in the form of tax and utility cost concessions) being distributed based on someone's personal financial situation, the means-test is based on the land classification that the property is built on. The land classification doesn't change whether the house is old or new, or if you build an apartment block on it. Which basically forces higher density in areas with better tax and utility cost concessions - aka poorer areas. In Colombia, this means that buying land in the highest-class areas costs as much - or in many cases less - than middle-class areas. This also introduced an almost caste-like system where people would only hang out from people from their own classification and would look down on people in lower classifications. I appreciate shared-housing is a thing in Dublin (it is in Sydney too, and I have similar feelings to you about it) but the situation in many parts of Latin America exists for somewhat different reasons.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  > What it takes is a gutsy mayor to implement policies such as requiring at least 1m side setback on houses and 3m for apartments, having caps on the floor-space ratio to 50% instead of 98%, not allowing subdivisions on lands that have less than 15m frontage or 600m2 total area etc. This would basically see the housing market crash - lots of people will lose lots of money. But its a necessary evil. What you propose is a giant subsidy to middle class life at the expense of poor people. This would take land that currently houses poor people and make that illegal. It also bans building a house with a courtyard on a lot below a certain size. This wouldn’t help poor people. It would just force them to commute to their work from further away. The housing support system described is particularly stupid but housing support doesn’t generally help anyway. The money just ends up in property holder’s or landowners’ pockets, whether in increased land prices or higher rental prices. The only way to decrease prices is by increasing supply, whether of land or housing.
  - stevenjohns 7y ago
    > What you propose is a giant subsidy to middle class life at the expense of poor people. The "poor" people are extremely poor to the point that you cannot comprehend. And they have to stay there and live there for their entire lives because the current system forces them to. It is impossible for them to move out because of how unaffordable the cities are and how heavily the system is rigged against them. They have nothing. These people are already commuting long distances and already live in unregulated, unmarked ghettos. Here[0] is a photo of one of those places I took back in March so you understand the extent of it. The only people who "lose" here are the current land owners of legal properties. Renters will end up with lower rent because housing will rapidly devalue to a tenth of its original value - every single house will stop being the foreign investment opportunity that it currently is. > This would take land that currently houses poor people and make that illegal. Clearly it's not retroactively applied. Town planning and zoning almost never is. > It also bans building a house with a courtyard on a lot below a certain size. I mean, I guess? But it also forces properties to have back and front yards, as well as side access, instead of being 100% concrete built wall-to-wall through to the footpath. > This wouldn’t help poor people. It would just force them to commute to their work from further away. I'm not sure how it would do anything else other than help poor(er) people and allow them to start living inside expanding cities rather than living on the extreme outskirts. [0] https://i.imgur.com/b2AKhfJ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/b2AKhfJ.jpg

dalore 7y ago

It's basically dormitory style housing, but planned for adults/workers. I would use something like this for sure in other countries, like London. Instead of having to go into town every day, go in Monday and come out Friday.