In my locality, which is a streetcar suburb that still has a street car, the houses are built close together usually with a garage or alley access in the rear. We've recently had a few developers come in to build some apartment buildings near the streetcar stops with much pushback. The most common pushback is "where will these people park?". No one uses the garages (people claim they're too small, but if you know there's limited parking, why are you buying such a huge car?), the boro doesn't plow alleys so people want to park on the street, and the streets are narrow so they can only support one side parking. I'm in favor for the buildings, mostly for the reasons you supply, but also because I live in a place where the local joke is that if you take 3 steps in any direction you will have changed elevation, so one-floor living is basically a unicorn unless you're in a managed building.
I'm sure you are partly right about people being blind to their future needs.
But I think there is another factor - high density housing in the US is butt-ugly and demoralizing. Traditional zoning makes it hard to change, and developer profit incentives mean housing will be as plain and highly standardized as possible. The idea of losing a view or open space so another developer can make another few million and your community ends with an another ugly box is just depressing.
I'd love to see what architects could come up with when charged with designing dense, green housing that provides both privacy and inviting public space, preferably within a small food forest. I remember reading about a development (although not extremely dense) like this in Northern California - it looked amazing.
Here in San Diego, they have changed zoning to allow for semi-high rise apartments and condos in commercially zones areas, and the changes have been profound. The sky scape of some places has drastically changed. This is all happening in areas that should have allowed for this years, perhaps decades ago. Although I don't like all the architecture, some of which is just plain unattractive, I appreciate the newness and the dynamic that is going on.
Lloyd, you allege that there's nothing wrong with those apartment buildings - but wait, there are steps to the front doors, so mothers with baby carriages and disabled people may not be able to get in. Are the doors mechanically or manually operated? "Fail".
I live in one of three condominium buildings, 8 and 10 storeys tall, where the inner lobby doors have disabled electrically operated doors. But the outer doors are heavy manually operated fire doors with closers - the rest of the buildings have flat floors throughout. I lobbied to get the outer doors manually operated and was told 'this project is not for disabled people'. Now, 20 years later, I'll try again ...
>>”We find that only 15 percent of meeting participants show up in support of the construction of new housing. Sixty-three percent oppose new development projects. Meeting commenters are also starkly unrepresentative of the mass public.”
So the people who show up to the meetings are the problem, and not the ones who are too lazy or stupid to get involved in their local politics? If you can’t bother to do the bare minimum of civic duty, why should you be considered to be “the voice and will of the people”?
This is true of almost everything, everywhere. People don’t want to get involved because they don’t see it as a priority. And if it’s older, rich WHITE men who have the time and desire to get involved, why shouldn’t their vested interests be respected and protected?
So according to you anyone who works nonstandard hours or has family to take care of doesn't deserve a voice because they are busy at the time of a town council meeting?
People don't want to waste their time getting involved because they are either too busy providing for themselves or their family or know they'll get steamrolled by the bored, over-funded loudmouths who do this as a hobby.
It's the Elitist hubris that maintains "they're too stupid to know what's best for them - but WE do. WHY won't they listen to us and do what we tell them is better for them?".
You know, like NY State Governor Hochul that just called all the people (I dryly note, in the Bronx, it's a majority Democrat/Progressive/Socialist area) that showed up for Trump's rally as "clowns".
The signal given off by "the clowns" and those rejecting urban planners isn't being listened to - "we just want to be left alone so stop meddling in our lives".
The TOWN of Oakville is weird place. For decades this "town" claimed 99,000 people lived there. Only recently admitting more than 225k people actually do. With more Bank VP's per sq km than most places on earth, it's also home to some major industries like a huge Ford plant. Rather than cap it's Urban boundary or choose a more current "green" urban design for that boundary, Oakville embraces sprawl to fill up its available space. With exponential increase in property values, it's the capital of the "Over housed" in the Greater Toronto Area. By that I mean, not just new large tracks of "executive" homes, but for some time now, modest existing mid-century single family homes continue to be demo'd. These are replaced by monster McMansions with every EIFS who-ha's in the catalogue glued to the exterior. The result of these two trends is a city that, by GTA standards, once boasted pretty good transit 15 years ago, now continues to fall in service and reliability rankings. Kids who grow up in Oakville, can't afford to live in Oakville unless they move back home & occupy part of their parents 3,000+ M2 McMansion. There's a reason many in the GTA refer to it as "Oinkville"
Re: "Goldilocks Density housing" one of my favorite solutions is Christopher Alexander's Shiratori and Chikusadai housing projects in Japan. I believe the concepts could be adapted sufficiently for our greedy N. American cultures.
In my locality, which is a streetcar suburb that still has a street car, the houses are built close together usually with a garage or alley access in the rear. We've recently had a few developers come in to build some apartment buildings near the streetcar stops with much pushback. The most common pushback is "where will these people park?". No one uses the garages (people claim they're too small, but if you know there's limited parking, why are you buying such a huge car?), the boro doesn't plow alleys so people want to park on the street, and the streets are narrow so they can only support one side parking. I'm in favor for the buildings, mostly for the reasons you supply, but also because I live in a place where the local joke is that if you take 3 steps in any direction you will have changed elevation, so one-floor living is basically a unicorn unless you're in a managed building.
I'm sure you are partly right about people being blind to their future needs.
But I think there is another factor - high density housing in the US is butt-ugly and demoralizing. Traditional zoning makes it hard to change, and developer profit incentives mean housing will be as plain and highly standardized as possible. The idea of losing a view or open space so another developer can make another few million and your community ends with an another ugly box is just depressing.
I'd love to see what architects could come up with when charged with designing dense, green housing that provides both privacy and inviting public space, preferably within a small food forest. I remember reading about a development (although not extremely dense) like this in Northern California - it looked amazing.
Here in San Diego, they have changed zoning to allow for semi-high rise apartments and condos in commercially zones areas, and the changes have been profound. The sky scape of some places has drastically changed. This is all happening in areas that should have allowed for this years, perhaps decades ago. Although I don't like all the architecture, some of which is just plain unattractive, I appreciate the newness and the dynamic that is going on.
Like Yelp people tend to voice their opinion only when they're pissed off. Also, I hope my stairs keep me mobile longer into my old age...i hope...
this is a contradiction that I have trouble with, I wrote a while back about how stairs keep you young...
https://lloydalter.substack.com/p/in-praise-of-stairs
Lloyd, you allege that there's nothing wrong with those apartment buildings - but wait, there are steps to the front doors, so mothers with baby carriages and disabled people may not be able to get in. Are the doors mechanically or manually operated? "Fail".
I live in one of three condominium buildings, 8 and 10 storeys tall, where the inner lobby doors have disabled electrically operated doors. But the outer doors are heavy manually operated fire doors with closers - the rest of the buildings have flat floors throughout. I lobbied to get the outer doors manually operated and was told 'this project is not for disabled people'. Now, 20 years later, I'll try again ...
>>”We find that only 15 percent of meeting participants show up in support of the construction of new housing. Sixty-three percent oppose new development projects. Meeting commenters are also starkly unrepresentative of the mass public.”
So the people who show up to the meetings are the problem, and not the ones who are too lazy or stupid to get involved in their local politics? If you can’t bother to do the bare minimum of civic duty, why should you be considered to be “the voice and will of the people”?
This is true of almost everything, everywhere. People don’t want to get involved because they don’t see it as a priority. And if it’s older, rich WHITE men who have the time and desire to get involved, why shouldn’t their vested interests be respected and protected?
So according to you anyone who works nonstandard hours or has family to take care of doesn't deserve a voice because they are busy at the time of a town council meeting?
People don't want to waste their time getting involved because they are either too busy providing for themselves or their family or know they'll get steamrolled by the bored, over-funded loudmouths who do this as a hobby.
From your explanation, they don't want to have a voice. If it is a waste of time for them, then they really don't care.
It's the Elitist hubris that maintains "they're too stupid to know what's best for them - but WE do. WHY won't they listen to us and do what we tell them is better for them?".
You know, like NY State Governor Hochul that just called all the people (I dryly note, in the Bronx, it's a majority Democrat/Progressive/Socialist area) that showed up for Trump's rally as "clowns".
The signal given off by "the clowns" and those rejecting urban planners isn't being listened to - "we just want to be left alone so stop meddling in our lives".
The TOWN of Oakville is weird place. For decades this "town" claimed 99,000 people lived there. Only recently admitting more than 225k people actually do. With more Bank VP's per sq km than most places on earth, it's also home to some major industries like a huge Ford plant. Rather than cap it's Urban boundary or choose a more current "green" urban design for that boundary, Oakville embraces sprawl to fill up its available space. With exponential increase in property values, it's the capital of the "Over housed" in the Greater Toronto Area. By that I mean, not just new large tracks of "executive" homes, but for some time now, modest existing mid-century single family homes continue to be demo'd. These are replaced by monster McMansions with every EIFS who-ha's in the catalogue glued to the exterior. The result of these two trends is a city that, by GTA standards, once boasted pretty good transit 15 years ago, now continues to fall in service and reliability rankings. Kids who grow up in Oakville, can't afford to live in Oakville unless they move back home & occupy part of their parents 3,000+ M2 McMansion. There's a reason many in the GTA refer to it as "Oinkville"
Re: "Goldilocks Density housing" one of my favorite solutions is Christopher Alexander's Shiratori and Chikusadai housing projects in Japan. I believe the concepts could be adapted sufficiently for our greedy N. American cultures.
>> "...for our greedy N. American cultures."
Greedy. Nice way to persuade and "win hearts and minds" by smearing them. Were you talking to Hochul about clowns earlier?
Ah yes, that very important virtue is missing - Respect for others' decisions about themselves.