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Affordable housing is a misleading term used for a few different situations: unless the problem is well defined, there is no proper solution. if affordable mea

Affordable housing is a misleading term used for a few different situations: unless the problem is well defined, there is no proper solution. if affordable means anyone should own a house, no matter the income or lack of - that is utopia. If affordable means cheap enough that lower third income bracket can still afford a house, there are solutions - high density blocks of flats like we have all over in Europe. But if you want cheap houses in the middle of an upscale neighborhood, that is nonsense. The size of the house is an inverse of the income even in Europe: people who can afford live in single homes or lower density constructions, the people that cannot afford that live in high density places, but you cannot build a couple of towers in the middle of a low density neighborhood, it was tried in UK and failed miserably for everyone.

imtringued 6y ago
You're not supposed to build towers. You're supposed to incrementally upzone neighborhoods over time. detached single family housing to row houses, row houses to 2 story apartment buildings, 2 story apartment buildings to 3-4 story apartment buildings and so on. Building big towers does work, but only if they are surrounded by other, slightly smaller towers.
- asdff 6y ago
  We are so behind the eightball in regards to how much housing capacity has been built that we really need to drop the 2-3-4 story apartment and go straight to 40 story towers in a lot of places. I think people on this board think we are at some comfortable stasis in housing right now; we are not. Working class families in cities like LA might be cramming five bodies and three incomes in a one bedroom apartment. The tenement conditions made famous by 1800s NYC have never really gone away for the working poor.
- JJMcJ 6y ago
  Incremental: Take an R-1 neighborhood. Don't necessarily allow 10 floor buildings, though that wouldn't be the end of the world. Maybe allow 25% of houses to be turned into duplexes, even less of a change than row houses. That alone would increase units available. Humor: The famous Painted Ladies, a block of Victorians in San Francisco, one end of the block has a 7 floor apartment building.
  - souprock 6y ago
    What about the fair share of on-street parking? A normal home will have 1 to 3 cars, but most likely they go in a garage or driveway. The street is mostly left for visitors. There is room for a friend, a grandma, a kitchen renovator, a pool cleaning service, and so on. Spill-over happens when somebody has a big party or when the SWAT team shows up, but those are rare occurrences. Add the apartment complex though, and spill-over becomes a daily occurrence. Every single day, the apartment dwellers claim most of the street parking. They didn't pay the other people in the neighborhood for grabbing an abnormal share of the community asset.
    - dublinben 6y ago
      >A normal home will have 1 to 3 cars Maybe in a single-family zoned, suburban community. Density allows for more efficient transportation modes, like walking, biking, and public transit. To cite one of the most extreme examples in the US, fewer than half of households in New York City have a car. In some neighborhoods like Hell's Kitchen, as few as 11% of households have a car.[0] [0]https://www.addressreport.com/blog/manhattan-neighborhoods-with-the-most-cars/ https://www.addressreport.com/blog/manhattan-neighborhoods-w...
      - souprock 6y ago
        Yes, in a single-family zoned, suburban community. The proposal was to add more people there, presumably without also adding a 24x7 subway system. It would be immensely unfair to the people who purchased homes with the expectation that plenty of free parking would always be available. Also, not that it matters for the fairness issue, I disagree that those other transportation modes are more efficient. They are definitely not acceptable alternatives.
        dublinben 6y ago
        >They are definitely not acceptable alternatives. Not in suburbia, but they work in dense cities.

imtringued 6y ago

You're not supposed to build towers. You're supposed to incrementally upzone neighborhoods over time. detached single family housing to row houses, row houses to 2 story apartment buildings, 2 story apartment buildings to 3-4 story apartment buildings and so on. Building big towers does work, but only if they are surrounded by other, slightly smaller towers.

asdff 6y ago
We are so behind the eightball in regards to how much housing capacity has been built that we really need to drop the 2-3-4 story apartment and go straight to 40 story towers in a lot of places. I think people on this board think we are at some comfortable stasis in housing right now; we are not. Working class families in cities like LA might be cramming five bodies and three incomes in a one bedroom apartment. The tenement conditions made famous by 1800s NYC have never really gone away for the working poor.
JJMcJ 6y ago
Incremental: Take an R-1 neighborhood. Don't necessarily allow 10 floor buildings, though that wouldn't be the end of the world. Maybe allow 25% of houses to be turned into duplexes, even less of a change than row houses. That alone would increase units available. Humor: The famous Painted Ladies, a block of Victorians in San Francisco, one end of the block has a 7 floor apartment building.
- souprock 6y ago
  What about the fair share of on-street parking? A normal home will have 1 to 3 cars, but most likely they go in a garage or driveway. The street is mostly left for visitors. There is room for a friend, a grandma, a kitchen renovator, a pool cleaning service, and so on. Spill-over happens when somebody has a big party or when the SWAT team shows up, but those are rare occurrences. Add the apartment complex though, and spill-over becomes a daily occurrence. Every single day, the apartment dwellers claim most of the street parking. They didn't pay the other people in the neighborhood for grabbing an abnormal share of the community asset.
  - dublinben 6y ago
    >A normal home will have 1 to 3 cars Maybe in a single-family zoned, suburban community. Density allows for more efficient transportation modes, like walking, biking, and public transit. To cite one of the most extreme examples in the US, fewer than half of households in New York City have a car. In some neighborhoods like Hell's Kitchen, as few as 11% of households have a car.[0] [0]https://www.addressreport.com/blog/manhattan-neighborhoods-with-the-most-cars/ https://www.addressreport.com/blog/manhattan-neighborhoods-w...
    - souprock 6y ago
      Yes, in a single-family zoned, suburban community. The proposal was to add more people there, presumably without also adding a 24x7 subway system. It would be immensely unfair to the people who purchased homes with the expectation that plenty of free parking would always be available. Also, not that it matters for the fairness issue, I disagree that those other transportation modes are more efficient. They are definitely not acceptable alternatives.
      - dublinben 6y ago
        >They are definitely not acceptable alternatives. Not in suburbia, but they work in dense cities.