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Boarding houses would work for a single person with no possessions. If you have a partner and/or kids, you need a different solution. > Mandate that housing ne

Boarding houses would work for a single person with no possessions. If you have a partner and/or kids, you need a different solution. > Mandate that housing needs to have individual bathrooms and kitchens for each unit, mandate that each unit needs a parking space or two, mandate a thousand other useless minutiae under the guise of safety or accessibility that don't actually matter Many of these mandates exist because retrofitting is impossible. Got three new tenants with cars? Get the backhoe; it's time to build the underground car park. Can't get to the crapper because the doors and bathroom are too small for your wheelchair, and you won't take a dump in diapers? No apartment for you! Low income, have kids and need 3 bedrooms? No room in the boarding house. Go somewhere else. Universal design is not expensive and makes living spaces more inclusive. https://www.archdaily.com/994337/what-is-universal-design https://www.archdaily.com/994337/what-is-universal-design

bryanlarsen 2y ago
> need 3 bedrooms? No room in the boarding house. Go somewhere else. The availability of boarding houses makes this far more possible. If single able bachelors without cars are living in massive accessible apartments with parking spots, that makes them unavailable for those who really need the accomodations.
science4sail 2y ago
The problem is that inclusive housing is expensive - if you build a inclusive space with parking or wheelchair accessibility or extra bedrooms, then you're silently excluding those who cannot afford those features. This was basically Hong Kong's government's rationale for why it didn't ban cage homes - doing so would benefit the winners of the public housing lottery but cause the "losers" to become homeless. Feels kind of like a trolley problem to me. > Universal Design is a concept that proposes the creation of spaces with democratic use, guaranteeing egalitarian conditions in terms of quality of service. The main goal of Universal Design is to allow everyone to use them to the fullest extent possible without the need for adaptations. Considered a concept that applies to architecture and other areas such as product design, Universal Design serves people considering their characteristics, age and individual abilities. Notably, the design website that you linked doesn't mention anything about making housing cheaper or more affordable.
- rickydroll 2y ago
  A better take is Universal Design adds nothing to the cost of building at scale. Anyone charging more for using Universal Design is scamming you. I think that the cost floor for housing (labor, land, materials) is high enough that "affordable housing" cannot be made without state funding. Helsinki is a good starting point. I understand the exclusion problem. As you said, inclusive space excludes those who can not afford the space (ghetto by income). Non-inclusive space excludes by physical ability (ghetto by the degree of handicap).

bryanlarsen 2y ago

> need 3 bedrooms? No room in the boarding house. Go somewhere else. The availability of boarding houses makes this far more possible. If single able bachelors without cars are living in massive accessible apartments with parking spots, that makes them unavailable for those who really need the accomodations.

science4sail 2y ago

The problem is that inclusive housing is expensive - if you build a inclusive space with parking or wheelchair accessibility or extra bedrooms, then you're silently excluding those who cannot afford those features. This was basically Hong Kong's government's rationale for why it didn't ban cage homes - doing so would benefit the winners of the public housing lottery but cause the "losers" to become homeless. Feels kind of like a trolley problem to me. > Universal Design is a concept that proposes the creation of spaces with democratic use, guaranteeing egalitarian conditions in terms of quality of service. The main goal of Universal Design is to allow everyone to use them to the fullest extent possible without the need for adaptations. Considered a concept that applies to architecture and other areas such as product design, Universal Design serves people considering their characteristics, age and individual abilities. Notably, the design website that you linked doesn't mention anything about making housing cheaper or more affordable.

rickydroll 2y ago
A better take is Universal Design adds nothing to the cost of building at scale. Anyone charging more for using Universal Design is scamming you. I think that the cost floor for housing (labor, land, materials) is high enough that "affordable housing" cannot be made without state funding. Helsinki is a good starting point. I understand the exclusion problem. As you said, inclusive space excludes those who can not afford the space (ghetto by income). Non-inclusive space excludes by physical ability (ghetto by the degree of handicap).