4 ms·

We should stop pretending it's a choice between single-family houses and 30 story high-rises. There are lots of seattle neighborhoods, for example, where peopl

We should stop pretending it's a choice between single-family houses and 30 story high-rises. There are lots of seattle neighborhoods, for example, where people bought single family houses 20, 30, 40 years ago because of the character of the neighborhood and now suddenly the yimbys have changed the zoning to accept seven story buildings. A good friend of mine has lived in and cared for his home for 25 years and now the houses bordering him directly to the south have been sold and a 7 story apartment building is going up 5 feet from his property. Once it's built, he will literally never get direct sunlight again. That's pretty significant.

davidw 4y ago
You can't avoid change. You have to pick what kind of change you want. This graphic sums it up pretty well: https://twitter.com/issiromem/status/1557816668604141568 https://twitter.com/issiromem/status/1557816668604141568 What your friend has observed is what happens when you keep it bottled up for years and years. Instead of gradually moving to 4-plexes and 3 story apartments and narrow townhomes, when all that demand finally gets unleashed, it's a larger change. Change can be disturbing, so we should aim for more frequent gradual changes than 'quantum leap' type stuff. That said, at least your friend has options in that their land is probably worth a ton of money now and they do have the possibility to get out and go somewhere more to their liking. Tons of people in high cost cities like Seattle have no home at all due to housing costs.
ryukafalz 4y ago
The fact that the change is “sudden” is a direct result of the fact that the ability to build has been restricted for so long. If building densely had been allowed all along, things would get built out whenever it made financial sense to do so, and you’d be able to see the trend coming gradually from a mile away. But now you’ve got all these low-density areas right next to (or in!) cities that have had artificial limitations on building for so long that when you do upzone a part of it it’s like letting out pressure all at once. The demand has grown with the population all this time but it hasn’t been met. It’s more important to me that people have places to live than that existing homeowners everywhere can have a neighborhood that never changes. The two are incompatible. It would be preferable for that change to be gradual, but given the current state of things I don’t see how that’s possible.
- heleninboodler 4y ago
  The public transit infrastructure will make a huge difference, in my opinion. The light rail heading north into suburbs where there's tons of space to build will make living outside the city itself much more bearable for people who work in the city. A modest single family home may still cost $1.5 million in the city, but at least people will have better options that don't mean a two hour commute.

davidw 4y ago

You can't avoid change. You have to pick what kind of change you want. This graphic sums it up pretty well: https://twitter.com/issiromem/status/1557816668604141568 https://twitter.com/issiromem/status/1557816668604141568 What your friend has observed is what happens when you keep it bottled up for years and years. Instead of gradually moving to 4-plexes and 3 story apartments and narrow townhomes, when all that demand finally gets unleashed, it's a larger change. Change can be disturbing, so we should aim for more frequent gradual changes than 'quantum leap' type stuff. That said, at least your friend has options in that their land is probably worth a ton of money now and they do have the possibility to get out and go somewhere more to their liking. Tons of people in high cost cities like Seattle have no home at all due to housing costs.

ryukafalz 4y ago

The fact that the change is “sudden” is a direct result of the fact that the ability to build has been restricted for so long. If building densely had been allowed all along, things would get built out whenever it made financial sense to do so, and you’d be able to see the trend coming gradually from a mile away. But now you’ve got all these low-density areas right next to (or in!) cities that have had artificial limitations on building for so long that when you do upzone a part of it it’s like letting out pressure all at once. The demand has grown with the population all this time but it hasn’t been met. It’s more important to me that people have places to live than that existing homeowners everywhere can have a neighborhood that never changes. The two are incompatible. It would be preferable for that change to be gradual, but given the current state of things I don’t see how that’s possible.

heleninboodler 4y ago
The public transit infrastructure will make a huge difference, in my opinion. The light rail heading north into suburbs where there's tons of space to build will make living outside the city itself much more bearable for people who work in the city. A modest single family home may still cost $1.5 million in the city, but at least people will have better options that don't mean a two hour commute.