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The average person has no choice but to live in single-family homes. That doesn't mean they want that. Your solution of 'move somewhere else' is completely tone

The average person has no choice but to live in single-family homes. That doesn't mean they want that. Your solution of 'move somewhere else' is completely tone-deaf. Furthermore, you completely ignored mid-rise housing, and the fact that it can be seamlessly mixed in with SFH without significantly changing the feel or character of the neighbourhood. Oh The Urbanity made a great YouTube video about this recently where they made a neutral comparison of different densities, from 0 to ultra-dense NYC skyscrapers. https://youtu.be/y3XoUBzfXps https://youtu.be/y3XoUBzfXps

twblalock 4y ago
Any solution that involves shared walls with neighbors is not desirable to the vast majority of Americans. Anyone who wants to live in apartments can do so. Nobody is forced to live in single-family homes -- on the contrary, we work long and hard to afford the money to get into them because they are better than listening to our neighbors all the time.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  That's a big claim with nothing backing it up.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    https://www.builderonline.com/money/economics/80-percent-of-americans-prefer-single-family-homeownership_o https://www.builderonline.com/money/economics/80-percent-of-...
    - mixmastamyk 4y ago
      And I prefer Ferraris. Too bad I can’t afford.
    - frosted-flakes 4y ago
      Absent anything else, of course most people prefer to live in single-family homes (SFH). But that's not the question most people have to face in reality, because SFH have other trade-offs that that survey completely ignored, including: - significantly higher cost (absent widespread R1 zoning, which drives the cost of apartments up), - locations in the middle of desolate suburbia, - dead neighbourhoods because almost no one lives there, - very few nearby stores and restaurants, - no or limited public transit because it costs far too much to run in sprawling suburbia, - utter dependence on personal automobiles, and the complete lack of independence for children, young adults, and other non-driving members of society, - the necessity of maintaining the grounds of your own personal park, - poorly maintained or missing public infrastructure because everything is so spread out, - having to endure endless traffic because of your 1hr commute to work, and I could go on. Given the above, if apartment living wasn't so heavily restricted by law, so many more people would choose to live in them rather than SFH. You only need to look at cities like Montreal or entire countries like the Netherlands to see that this is true. In Montreal, housing is still cheap and most people live in multiplexes (walk-up two-to-four storey buildings with private front doors and small back yards) and live very close to where they work, but there are still a lot of different styles of SFH that people can choose to live in if they want, and many do. Again, look at the video I linked above for examples.
      - rocket_surgeron 4y ago
        >locations in the middle of desolate suburbia, I love the constant description of suburbia as being desolate. My suburban neighborhood is pretty typical and we have a vibrant community, including little free libraries, bike trails, conservation clubs, birdwatching orgs, garden clubs, needlecraft clubs, kids running lemonade stands, teens hustling to shovel driveways in the winter, a community pool, bake sales, plant sales, strawberry festivals, and more. We even all banded together and got rid of a lot of the streetlights so now I live in a Bortle 3 (or VERY low Bortle 4) dark sky. And because I have a yard I have a huge-ass amateur radio antenna farm and a fire pit where people come over to chill out. I raised three daughters here and they turned out fantastic, and spent their youth doing some real Stranger Things stuff without all of the upside-down bits. If I want to feel hip and urbane I drive the 20 minutes to the train station and go into town, pay my $20 for a cocktail, see an overpriced show, and then retire to my awesome house. I'm beginning to think that people who think suburbia is desolate are miserable shitheads who a: people don't want to be around, or b: don't want to be around other people.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- rtpg 4y ago
  I think that loads of people are fine with apartments because of the price/convenience/location. If you ask a young couple "would you rather pay $1500/month to be in an apartment or $3000/month to be in a SFH", you think everyone is choosing the latter?
  - twblalock 4y ago
    Once they have kids, almost everyone who can afford it chooses a home in the quietest and safest neighborhood they can get into. Apartments are fun when you are young and want to live downtown and enjoy the restaurants and the night life. When you get older and want your home to be a refuge and raise a family, apartments really suck.
    - celtain 4y ago
      Ok, but not everyone can afford it. When there's a dearth of apartments and you can't afford your own detached house, you're forced to share a house with other people. People do not prefer sharing a house with roommates to having their own apartment. Also the idea that people's preferences should be encoded into bans on certain housing types is completely absurd to begin with.
      - twblalock 4y ago
        There is no dearth of apartments. Apartments are everywhere. It's just silly to think that people are "forced" to live in single family homes.
        thereisnospork 4y ago
        Yes there is, and no they are not: See the increase in rents historically outpacing inflation in major metros. Also please see the price increases in single family homes also historically outpacing inflation in major metros. Build more of something, and dare I say it, maybe let's let the market decide what and where.
    - mixmastamyk 4y ago
- asdff 4y ago
  If these things weren't desirable you wouldn't see so much demand for homes in boston and nyc and chicago with attached walls. Its not an act of desperation to move into a 25 million dollar townhome in manhattan, considering 25 million just across the hudson or upstate or in long island would probably buy you a castle fit for the king of England.
sokoloff 4y ago
If those mid-rise buildings have their own parking and residents there are not able to get resident street parking permits, I’d be quite prone to support it. If the first of those is falsified, the mid-rise has a negative effect on the nearby properties. If the second is falsified, that negative effect is significantly amplified. Our part of the city of Cambridge has slightly less street sparking space than cars for the houses here. That’s made up for by about 2/3 of the houses having private driveways (which take one street spot for the curb cut, but often add 2-4 parking spots). Place even a 6-story mid-rise with no parking and 40 cars for its 8 cars worth of frontage and it creates chaos in a way that a triplex or SFR doesn’t.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  If we built our cities in such a way that everyone didn't need a car, this wouldn't be a problem. Nonetheless, and quite ironically, off-street parking mandates are one of the main reasons that everyone does need a car. Eliminate those mandates, and you eliminate vast swathes of empty nothingland that are a huge hindrance to car-free living. Furthermore, if there is no off-street parking and cities price on-street parking appropriately such that there are always a few empty spots, no one would move into the area with the expectation that they can park their car for free, and it wouldn't be a problem. Off-street parking mandates sound like a good idea, but they're actually horrible for cities, and they're part of why most American cities are as sprawling and car-dependent as they are. City-planners of the 20th century thought the same as you and didn't consider the consequences, and now the trend is reversing: many cities and states are beginning to eliminate those mandates, but it's going to take quite a long time before the effects are felt.

twblalock 4y ago

Any solution that involves shared walls with neighbors is not desirable to the vast majority of Americans. Anyone who wants to live in apartments can do so. Nobody is forced to live in single-family homes -- on the contrary, we work long and hard to afford the money to get into them because they are better than listening to our neighbors all the time.

frosted-flakes 4y ago
That's a big claim with nothing backing it up.
- kortilla 4y ago
  https://www.builderonline.com/money/economics/80-percent-of-americans-prefer-single-family-homeownership_o https://www.builderonline.com/money/economics/80-percent-of-...
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    And I prefer Ferraris. Too bad I can’t afford.
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    Absent anything else, of course most people prefer to live in single-family homes (SFH). But that's not the question most people have to face in reality, because SFH have other trade-offs that that survey completely ignored, including: - significantly higher cost (absent widespread R1 zoning, which drives the cost of apartments up), - locations in the middle of desolate suburbia, - dead neighbourhoods because almost no one lives there, - very few nearby stores and restaurants, - no or limited public transit because it costs far too much to run in sprawling suburbia, - utter dependence on personal automobiles, and the complete lack of independence for children, young adults, and other non-driving members of society, - the necessity of maintaining the grounds of your own personal park, - poorly maintained or missing public infrastructure because everything is so spread out, - having to endure endless traffic because of your 1hr commute to work, and I could go on. Given the above, if apartment living wasn't so heavily restricted by law, so many more people would choose to live in them rather than SFH. You only need to look at cities like Montreal or entire countries like the Netherlands to see that this is true. In Montreal, housing is still cheap and most people live in multiplexes (walk-up two-to-four storey buildings with private front doors and small back yards) and live very close to where they work, but there are still a lot of different styles of SFH that people can choose to live in if they want, and many do. Again, look at the video I linked above for examples.
    - rocket_surgeron 4y ago
      >locations in the middle of desolate suburbia, I love the constant description of suburbia as being desolate. My suburban neighborhood is pretty typical and we have a vibrant community, including little free libraries, bike trails, conservation clubs, birdwatching orgs, garden clubs, needlecraft clubs, kids running lemonade stands, teens hustling to shovel driveways in the winter, a community pool, bake sales, plant sales, strawberry festivals, and more. We even all banded together and got rid of a lot of the streetlights so now I live in a Bortle 3 (or VERY low Bortle 4) dark sky. And because I have a yard I have a huge-ass amateur radio antenna farm and a fire pit where people come over to chill out. I raised three daughters here and they turned out fantastic, and spent their youth doing some real Stranger Things stuff without all of the upside-down bits. If I want to feel hip and urbane I drive the 20 minutes to the train station and go into town, pay my $20 for a cocktail, see an overpriced show, and then retire to my awesome house. I'm beginning to think that people who think suburbia is desolate are miserable shitheads who a: people don't want to be around, or b: don't want to be around other people.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rtpg 4y ago
I think that loads of people are fine with apartments because of the price/convenience/location. If you ask a young couple "would you rather pay $1500/month to be in an apartment or $3000/month to be in a SFH", you think everyone is choosing the latter?
- twblalock 4y ago
  Once they have kids, almost everyone who can afford it chooses a home in the quietest and safest neighborhood they can get into. Apartments are fun when you are young and want to live downtown and enjoy the restaurants and the night life. When you get older and want your home to be a refuge and raise a family, apartments really suck.
  - celtain 4y ago
    Ok, but not everyone can afford it. When there's a dearth of apartments and you can't afford your own detached house, you're forced to share a house with other people. People do not prefer sharing a house with roommates to having their own apartment. Also the idea that people's preferences should be encoded into bans on certain housing types is completely absurd to begin with.
    - twblalock 4y ago
      There is no dearth of apartments. Apartments are everywhere. It's just silly to think that people are "forced" to live in single family homes.
      - thereisnospork 4y ago
        Yes there is, and no they are not: See the increase in rents historically outpacing inflation in major metros. Also please see the price increases in single family homes also historically outpacing inflation in major metros. Build more of something, and dare I say it, maybe let's let the market decide what and where.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
asdff 4y ago
If these things weren't desirable you wouldn't see so much demand for homes in boston and nyc and chicago with attached walls. Its not an act of desperation to move into a 25 million dollar townhome in manhattan, considering 25 million just across the hudson or upstate or in long island would probably buy you a castle fit for the king of England.

sokoloff 4y ago

If those mid-rise buildings have their own parking and residents there are not able to get resident street parking permits, I’d be quite prone to support it. If the first of those is falsified, the mid-rise has a negative effect on the nearby properties. If the second is falsified, that negative effect is significantly amplified. Our part of the city of Cambridge has slightly less street sparking space than cars for the houses here. That’s made up for by about 2/3 of the houses having private driveways (which take one street spot for the curb cut, but often add 2-4 parking spots). Place even a 6-story mid-rise with no parking and 40 cars for its 8 cars worth of frontage and it creates chaos in a way that a triplex or SFR doesn’t.

frosted-flakes 4y ago
If we built our cities in such a way that everyone didn't need a car, this wouldn't be a problem. Nonetheless, and quite ironically, off-street parking mandates are one of the main reasons that everyone does need a car. Eliminate those mandates, and you eliminate vast swathes of empty nothingland that are a huge hindrance to car-free living. Furthermore, if there is no off-street parking and cities price on-street parking appropriately such that there are always a few empty spots, no one would move into the area with the expectation that they can park their car for free, and it wouldn't be a problem. Off-street parking mandates sound like a good idea, but they're actually horrible for cities, and they're part of why most American cities are as sprawling and car-dependent as they are. City-planners of the 20th century thought the same as you and didn't consider the consequences, and now the trend is reversing: many cities and states are beginning to eliminate those mandates, but it's going to take quite a long time before the effects are felt.