I agree the floor is way too high. Of course we don't want 100% 300 square foot studios with no kitchens, but we also don't want 100% single family houses. We need everything in between and for it to be priced accordingly. Having a pricepoint for everyone is a good thing. That's the problem with simple expressed truisms is they get misapplied and end up distorting everything.
Yep. This is what "Missing Middle" is about - we have plenty of houses and a fair number of conventional large apartment buildings. Everything else has largely been squeezed out. To the point that even the memory of it has largely disappeared in many places.
Definitely, but I think it goes farther than just typical missing middle. In Annapolis, there is lots of talk about missing middle (and we have a lot of it as non conforming from the "old days"), but even that is expensive. I'd really like to see a place where a college/post college student could live for $700 a month (I got this from inflating my $250 tiny post graduate apartment in Cleveland in 1987 and adjusting for locale) without 4 room mates. Things like parking could be ala carte to keep costs down. This would be the perfect starter apartment. Maybe would be good for a year or two while someone got established and since it's quite constrained, probably would leave as soon as they could afford the next increment up. This might be a small apartment building, with small studios with a sink, microwave, mini fridge and induction cooktop. The way I think about this is basically what a lot of people are doing with "van life", but for those who don't care about being a nomad. Unfortunately our codes are going to jack the minimum floor space too high and prevent this, and of course if we allowed it, the screams would be insane. It's really incoherent that what people want to be built are nice places that they as established, older adults would want to live in, but someone to subsidize them. That's essentially what our moderately priced dwelling unit legislation does. But while that's a tool in the box, it's not going to have much effect on the overall problem. We need "D. All of the above".
I've been an advocate for the no-kitchen thing, it was common in Hong Kong and Singapore much more recently (where the culture of going out to hawker centres for food is still widespread). These are also places where pre-air-con the last thing you'd want is every apartment in a building to be cooking!
I also lived for a time in one of the old women's hotels in New York where there was a dining room. It was easy and economical.
Agree with you on the minimum not meaning "everyone gets that" but simply pricing some people out altogether.
This is something I've thought about: partly the hollowing out of residential options in downtowns, so you'd get cafes which serve breakfast/lunch for office workers but close at 2pm.
There are also the costs involved in setting up a food cart, and the limited places one can park, and the cartels involved (I don't know if you've written about the ice cream wars?).
America's street food is fast food, which is designed to be accessed from a car on an offramp, not in a downtown.
I agree the floor is way too high. Of course we don't want 100% 300 square foot studios with no kitchens, but we also don't want 100% single family houses. We need everything in between and for it to be priced accordingly. Having a pricepoint for everyone is a good thing. That's the problem with simple expressed truisms is they get misapplied and end up distorting everything.
Yep. This is what "Missing Middle" is about - we have plenty of houses and a fair number of conventional large apartment buildings. Everything else has largely been squeezed out. To the point that even the memory of it has largely disappeared in many places.
Definitely, but I think it goes farther than just typical missing middle. In Annapolis, there is lots of talk about missing middle (and we have a lot of it as non conforming from the "old days"), but even that is expensive. I'd really like to see a place where a college/post college student could live for $700 a month (I got this from inflating my $250 tiny post graduate apartment in Cleveland in 1987 and adjusting for locale) without 4 room mates. Things like parking could be ala carte to keep costs down. This would be the perfect starter apartment. Maybe would be good for a year or two while someone got established and since it's quite constrained, probably would leave as soon as they could afford the next increment up. This might be a small apartment building, with small studios with a sink, microwave, mini fridge and induction cooktop. The way I think about this is basically what a lot of people are doing with "van life", but for those who don't care about being a nomad. Unfortunately our codes are going to jack the minimum floor space too high and prevent this, and of course if we allowed it, the screams would be insane. It's really incoherent that what people want to be built are nice places that they as established, older adults would want to live in, but someone to subsidize them. That's essentially what our moderately priced dwelling unit legislation does. But while that's a tool in the box, it's not going to have much effect on the overall problem. We need "D. All of the above".
I've been an advocate for the no-kitchen thing, it was common in Hong Kong and Singapore much more recently (where the culture of going out to hawker centres for food is still widespread). These are also places where pre-air-con the last thing you'd want is every apartment in a building to be cooking!
I also lived for a time in one of the old women's hotels in New York where there was a dining room. It was easy and economical.
Agree with you on the minimum not meaning "everyone gets that" but simply pricing some people out altogether.
I wonder how much all of this relates to the lack of a real street food culture in America
This is something I've thought about: partly the hollowing out of residential options in downtowns, so you'd get cafes which serve breakfast/lunch for office workers but close at 2pm.
There are also the costs involved in setting up a food cart, and the limited places one can park, and the cartels involved (I don't know if you've written about the ice cream wars?).
America's street food is fast food, which is designed to be accessed from a car on an offramp, not in a downtown.