Honestly, there is a lot that drives me crazy about urbanism right now. But perhaps number one is the desire so many have to build for people who don't want to live in cities, while ignoring those that do.
Our priority should be building small units that are a few hundred square feet at most. And we should be building them until the minimum wage fast food worker can afford to live blocks from where they work, if the worker so desires.
Urbanists are constantly talking about building housing and building larger units for families while ignoring the more needed and desired housing for singles. At this point, this is a huge mistake and I'm going to list several reasons why.
Number one: Most families don't want to live in cities. Even those that want to usually want houses and cars anyways.
And I would also add, even when families buy/rent units in multi-floor buildings most do not stay. And it isn't simply a matter of space or doing what everyone else is doing. There are much larger issues of discrimination. In particular, micro-aggressions that skirt the laws supposed to protect families. And realistically, even outside of your own housing people tend to be less tolerant of children in cities and the spaces for children are much nicer in the suburbs.
A lot of urbanists with families who advocate for families to live in cities don't live in high rises; they live in houses (including duplexes/rowhouses). But these are honestly, the type of properties that make it harder for others to be able to afford housing. You just can't fit enough of these, even if they are zero lot, into a city to get everyone who wants to live in a city into one.
Given this is the type of housing most families want; and I don't blame them given COVID, neighbors who demand silence walking down a hall, etc, many of these families when they can't afford a million dollar townhouse end up moving to a suburb instead.
Number two: Most singles do want to live in cities. But many can't afford to. And many want to or will live car-free.
And this is the real tragedy. Singles having to live in places with poor quality transit or no transit due to housing costs. Examples would include singles living with their parents. Or if we use dc as an example, commuting into urban areas from places such as Annandale, Alexandria or even further out like Manassas, etc. Basically, commuting in from places where they can get an affordable place to live. Then they drive into cities to work and then we hear the "but we have to have parking for workers". No, what we really need to do is building housing for workers in locations that allow then to walk, bike or take transit to work.
And I will add the vast majority of people I know who live in studios in urban areas don't own cars.
Number three: Families don't usually occupy the large units anyways. And the people who live in them usually have cars.
My experience is that these units that are so called being built for families with kids are rarely occupied by families with kids. And if you include families with more than one kid the rareness drops even further. My experience is that these larger units are mostly occupied by two groups of people: roommates or singles/couples who have a lot of stuff-particularly older couples.
The roommate situations are probably not much different in terms of usage to smaller units. But individual units are probably better given the endless COVID situation. And given the endless COVID situation more people are opting out of roommate situations, even if that equals living in a studio or basement apartment further out.
However, individuals/couples in larger units when there aren't enough smaller units definitely take away from getting a larger number of people into cities. On top of that, people who can afford these larger units tend to have money. And from my experience most of them also tend to have vehicles (and in a number of cases SUVs or pick-ups), even if they sometimes walk, bike or use transit. But most of them drive at least somewhat frequently too. They partially take advantage of city living, but also bring something of the suburban lifestyle into the city.
I have also gotten let's build all of this. Well, thanks to the poor COVID response, we have a lack of workers, a lack of building materials and even if we didn't this isn't tinker toys. It actually takes time to build housing and only so much can up so fast. Choices have to be made.
These are not just things in my head or theories. They come from 15+ years of living in numerous condos and apartments and 5+ years of living in a condo with a family until finally giving up on urbanism and moving to a suburban house...but that is a story for another time...you can also read some of it here- Kaufman Green Books and Guides: Urbanism and how not listening to female voices hurts it.
About the author: Rachelle Kaufman is a YIMBY with life experience around housing. She is also a mother, gardener, and author of a number of books. For more info on her books please visit Amazon.com: Rachelle Kaufman: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle
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