4 ms·
Pretty much everyone in a duplex would rather live in single-family. Pretty much everyone who has lived next to a duplex would rather live next to single-famil
by anamax 5y ago
Pretty much everyone in a duplex would rather live in single-family.
Pretty much everyone who has lived next to a duplex would rather live next to single-family. (I'm not saying that every instance of living next to single-family goes well.)
Yes, duplexes are less expensive than single-family, so they're the best that some people can do, but that's no reason to make them the only option.
- skybrian 5y agoWhy would you say people prefer this?
- anamax 5y agoOh goody, you want to argue that other people want the wrong things because their preferences conflict with a mechanism that you want to use for your social goals. There are costs and benefits to every kind of living arrangement. Most people who have actual experience with duplexes think that they are a bad compromise between single-family and apartments. I was going to write that duplexes combine the worst aspects of single-family and apartments until I remembered that they also have some unique problems. There are rich people who live in single-family. There are rich people who live in apartment-like housing. No one who can afford better lives in a duplex. (I live in a duplex...)
- skybrian 5y agoI was just asking. If you don't want to talk about what the problems are, you don't have to.
- anamax 5y agoThe problems are that duplex/triplex/quadplex are all compromises. They don't have any of the strengths of either apartments or single-family. At the same time, they have all the weaknesses of both. The result is that they're the right choice for no one.
- anamax 5y agoI neglected to mention that duplexes don't have the mechanisms associated with single-family or apartments for dealing with the problems that they share with both. I also should not have said that they're never the right choice. Some times the best choice available isn't that good, and isn't what you'd do if things were a bit different. That's how people end up in duplexes. It isn't what they want, but it is the best that they can do at that moment in time.