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> More dense construction in urban areas will probably help make single family homes affordable for those who want them. Probably the opposite effect for SFHs

by Axsuul 3y ago

> More dense construction in urban areas will probably help make single family homes affordable for those who want them. Probably the opposite effect for SFHs in the urban areas. People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family, and those are gradually being replaced by these multi-family dwellings, so the supply of them is actually going down.

stetrain 3y ago
Well yes. There is more demand for housing in urban areas than there is room for detached single family homes. Either prices will continue to increase beyond the affordability of those raising families, or density can increase. That's why they are urban areas, not suburban or rural. > People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family I also think this is kind of a US-centric experience, or at least doesn't take pricing and location into account. I suppose most people would prefer a single family home in central Manhattan but that doesn't exist, and if it did it would be unaffordable. Now a single family detached home with a convenient transit commute into the city would be great. The US isn't great at building those either.
ska 3y ago
> People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family, I don't think it's that simple. I mean, everyone would love a big house on a big yard that is close to everything, but approximately nobody gets to do that. In reality there are always tradeoffs, and the the tradeoffs build in incentives - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, that people respond to. In a lot of the US those incentives have skewed pretty hard recently to exurban singles but that's not universal. These sorts of things are hugely affected by infrastructure planning and subsidies, etc. At the end of the day people choose between the options they have, not the ones they wish they had.

by Axsuul 3y ago

stetrain 3y ago

Well yes. There is more demand for housing in urban areas than there is room for detached single family homes. Either prices will continue to increase beyond the affordability of those raising families, or density can increase. That's why they are urban areas, not suburban or rural. > People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family I also think this is kind of a US-centric experience, or at least doesn't take pricing and location into account. I suppose most people would prefer a single family home in central Manhattan but that doesn't exist, and if it did it would be unaffordable. Now a single family detached home with a convenient transit commute into the city would be great. The US isn't great at building those either.

ska 3y ago

> People usually prefer living in a detached house, especially when raising a family, I don't think it's that simple. I mean, everyone would love a big house on a big yard that is close to everything, but approximately nobody gets to do that. In reality there are always tradeoffs, and the the tradeoffs build in incentives - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, that people respond to. In a lot of the US those incentives have skewed pretty hard recently to exurban singles but that's not universal. These sorts of things are hugely affected by infrastructure planning and subsidies, etc. At the end of the day people choose between the options they have, not the ones they wish they had.