"In your mind it twins construction noise, delays, cost overruns with new things getting built."
This made something click for me. The one type of housing that generally isn't beset with all these delays is single family homes, which often seem to pop up overnight. I wonder if that leads people to believe we should stop "messing around" with multi-unit buildings and just build more single family homes.
Of course, a big part of the reason we struggle to build more multi-family housing is all the regulatory barriers. In my neighborhood, I have seen three unit buildings go up about as fast as a typical single family build in places where they are allowed by right. However, anything more than three units seems to involve some sort of negotiation with the local alderman, at a minimum.
We had one in my community that got held up over a decade ago by the housing crash. It got mired in lawsuits when a developer tried to step in and finish it. And the city had basically NO reason to tie it up, they just didn't like the way the guy bought the property, apparently. Everyone started calling it the "Tyvek Temple".
"The idea that you could live in one of these places, step right out of your apartment into the middle of town—tiny as it might be—remove that friction of the car and a 5-10 drive separating you from everything…to me, and to a lot of people my age, that’s amazing. It’s the coolest damn thing in the world." -- Yes. We moved from Loudoun Country (a D.C. exurb) to a six-story apartment building at Glebe & Columbia Pike in Arlington late last year. In Loudoun, we do treat downtown Leesburg as a place for a stroll and an ice cream. Leesburg (as you probably know) is lovely, but besides the professionals and the small businesses, there's no street life. But Columbia Pike feels like the first community I've ever lived in after college. I think you're right: residents are what makes it real.
"In your mind it twins construction noise, delays, cost overruns with new things getting built."
This made something click for me. The one type of housing that generally isn't beset with all these delays is single family homes, which often seem to pop up overnight. I wonder if that leads people to believe we should stop "messing around" with multi-unit buildings and just build more single family homes.
Of course, a big part of the reason we struggle to build more multi-family housing is all the regulatory barriers. In my neighborhood, I have seen three unit buildings go up about as fast as a typical single family build in places where they are allowed by right. However, anything more than three units seems to involve some sort of negotiation with the local alderman, at a minimum.
We had one in my community that got held up over a decade ago by the housing crash. It got mired in lawsuits when a developer tried to step in and finish it. And the city had basically NO reason to tie it up, they just didn't like the way the guy bought the property, apparently. Everyone started calling it the "Tyvek Temple".
"The idea that you could live in one of these places, step right out of your apartment into the middle of town—tiny as it might be—remove that friction of the car and a 5-10 drive separating you from everything…to me, and to a lot of people my age, that’s amazing. It’s the coolest damn thing in the world." -- Yes. We moved from Loudoun Country (a D.C. exurb) to a six-story apartment building at Glebe & Columbia Pike in Arlington late last year. In Loudoun, we do treat downtown Leesburg as a place for a stroll and an ice cream. Leesburg (as you probably know) is lovely, but besides the professionals and the small businesses, there's no street life. But Columbia Pike feels like the first community I've ever lived in after college. I think you're right: residents are what makes it real.