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The article mentions anti-development being conflated for anti-gentrification: " In San Francisco, residents who resist gentrification do it by blocking the dev

by saeranv 12y ago

The article mentions anti-development being conflated for anti-gentrification: " In San Francisco, residents who resist gentrification do it by blocking the development of new, high-density housing projects. They imagine that the city’s parks and neighborhoods will be destroyed to make way for gated communities of gleaming skyscrapers full of condos." But, as the article goes on to point out, this also prevents new housing from mitigating the high cost of housing in low supply. The activists are completely wrong, high-density development has traditionally deteriorated surrounding communities - but there are ways to build up housing supply, while maintaining a pleasant civic environment. But first let's address the activist's points: high density development traditionally has a negative impact on the surrounding urban space. By negative impact I mean things like: gated communities that segregate income classes, skyscrapers that create harsh micro-climates at pedestrian level and all-glass condos that create glare and require incredible heating and cooling energy to be liveable. So is it possible to integrate high density housing into urban areas while mitigating the negative impact of the surrounding urban environment? Better planning and building codes would do a lot to prevent gated communities and unsustainable building practices. As for building density, which is tangentially related to my area of study (M.Arch candidate) - the best precedents are historic European cities, like Paris. Paris lies at a optimal sweet spot for building density, that allows it to sustain a rich urban life, achieve moderate energy usage (unlike glass condominium tower developments) with relatively modest densities - mid-rise buildings.[1] So if there's a path forward to deal with gentrification, it will involve amping up the housing supply in the city using an integrated, consistent midrise development patterns. It is possible, but blocking development is incredibly short-sighted, you've got to tackle the development models used in cities. [1]http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378778802000750 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378778802...

at-fates-hands 12y ago
>>> the best precedents are historic European cities, like Paris. Paris lies at a optimal sweet spot for building density I'm assuming you're referring to the Huassmann's renovation?
- saeranv 12y ago
  In a large part, yes - creating large squares, avenues, decongesting dangerously crowded slums. I believe it was Pope Pius IV who did something similar to Rome retroactively imposing an urban structure onto the city by creating main avenues, squares and intersections.
jacobolus 12y ago
The 5-story downtown part of Paris is great, but from what I understand it’s also very expensive housing, and plenty of people commute in from high rises further away.
- saeranv 12y ago
  Yeah, that's inevitable. From the same source I cited above, average densities (people/hectare) for European cities range 50-130, American cities have 5-40, and the far East has 160 - 275. When I say historic European cities are a sweet spot, I mean, they're the most reasonable density you build up to, without getting into the congestion, traffic and transportation energy problems of Eastern cities. With regards to the midrise model I'm promoting above, I should add it's usually best practise to 'anchor' public transportation nodes like subway stops, with high-rises, so as to compact more density around these areas. Also, while I have yet to see a convincing scheme to successfully integrate affordable housing into downtown, high-demand areas, one of the least-bad incentive schemes is to make them a condition of allowing developers to build tall. Essentially, high-rise has it's place in the city as a useful strategy to increase efficiency of high-demand areas or help create mixed-income areas.
jacobolus 12y ago
What I wish they’d do in the Bay Area & San Francisco is figure out how improve transit and increase the density of single-story residential areas like the Sunset or the Richmond (I think these are zoned to require no more than 2 units per building or something?), or turn some of the areas toward the southern end of the city from low-density warehouses &c. into 3-5 story mixed-use with lots of housing, and then build some more reasonable urban (again 3–5 story) centers in the towns in the peninsula (Mountain View &c.) so there would be better/more interesting places for all the young tech workers who work there to live and they wouldn’t get forced to all move to SF to avoid surburban sprawl. I’m curious what would happen if many zoning restrictions were loosened (for instance allowing lots of units with no dedicated parking spaces, and encouraging mixed use residential/commercial) and replaced with a 5 or 6 story maximum height, something like central Paris density, and if property taxes were allowed to go up commensurate with property value (damn Prop 13). If combined with transit infrastructure improvements, I suspect it would be possible to keep a very nice walkable livable city with dramatically increased housing stock. [Which is I guess some of what you’re talking about.]
- saeranv 12y ago
  YES. I think regulation is a huge problem here, there's all sorts of mandatory parking requirements, maximum height restrictions, lot ratios etc etc. And it's not just requirements encouraging sprawl - the opposite happens too, like minimum density requirements requiring three story or higher buildings which prevents development in areas with less-demand. Personally I think there's a culture of over-prescribing development which is making it illegal to building good cities.

by saeranv 12y ago

at-fates-hands 12y ago

>>> the best precedents are historic European cities, like Paris. Paris lies at a optimal sweet spot for building density I'm assuming you're referring to the Huassmann's renovation?

saeranv 12y ago
In a large part, yes - creating large squares, avenues, decongesting dangerously crowded slums. I believe it was Pope Pius IV who did something similar to Rome retroactively imposing an urban structure onto the city by creating main avenues, squares and intersections.

jacobolus 12y ago

The 5-story downtown part of Paris is great, but from what I understand it’s also very expensive housing, and plenty of people commute in from high rises further away.

saeranv 12y ago
Yeah, that's inevitable. From the same source I cited above, average densities (people/hectare) for European cities range 50-130, American cities have 5-40, and the far East has 160 - 275. When I say historic European cities are a sweet spot, I mean, they're the most reasonable density you build up to, without getting into the congestion, traffic and transportation energy problems of Eastern cities. With regards to the midrise model I'm promoting above, I should add it's usually best practise to 'anchor' public transportation nodes like subway stops, with high-rises, so as to compact more density around these areas. Also, while I have yet to see a convincing scheme to successfully integrate affordable housing into downtown, high-demand areas, one of the least-bad incentive schemes is to make them a condition of allowing developers to build tall. Essentially, high-rise has it's place in the city as a useful strategy to increase efficiency of high-demand areas or help create mixed-income areas.

jacobolus 12y ago

What I wish they’d do in the Bay Area & San Francisco is figure out how improve transit and increase the density of single-story residential areas like the Sunset or the Richmond (I think these are zoned to require no more than 2 units per building or something?), or turn some of the areas toward the southern end of the city from low-density warehouses &c. into 3-5 story mixed-use with lots of housing, and then build some more reasonable urban (again 3–5 story) centers in the towns in the peninsula (Mountain View &c.) so there would be better/more interesting places for all the young tech workers who work there to live and they wouldn’t get forced to all move to SF to avoid surburban sprawl. I’m curious what would happen if many zoning restrictions were loosened (for instance allowing lots of units with no dedicated parking spaces, and encouraging mixed use residential/commercial) and replaced with a 5 or 6 story maximum height, something like central Paris density, and if property taxes were allowed to go up commensurate with property value (damn Prop 13). If combined with transit infrastructure improvements, I suspect it would be possible to keep a very nice walkable livable city with dramatically increased housing stock. [Which is I guess some of what you’re talking about.]

saeranv 12y ago
YES. I think regulation is a huge problem here, there's all sorts of mandatory parking requirements, maximum height restrictions, lot ratios etc etc. And it's not just requirements encouraging sprawl - the opposite happens too, like minimum density requirements requiring three story or higher buildings which prevents development in areas with less-demand. Personally I think there's a culture of over-prescribing development which is making it illegal to building good cities.