[nutheracc]

On the subject of affordable housing, not to be argumentative, what is it? Why is that term used? If there was sufficient housing, it would be affordable. Seems to me affordable housing means crap housing, thereby cheap in the current environment where there is insufficient housing. Therefore people should stop talking about affordable housing, and start talking about more housing.

[mcphage]

> Therefore people should stop talking about affordable housing, and start talking about more housing.

Well, for starters, "affordable housing" is usually used in the context of adding housing. So it's generally already part of the discussion. And secondly, it's not just more, but what kind of more housing. More, yet expensive housing won't help, so "more" is necessary, but not sufficient.

[smeyer]

>More, yet expensive housing won't help

Yes it will. It might not help as much as cheaper housing, but it will help. Any increase to housing stock should lower prices overall. For example, building a luxury apartment building that adds a few hundred expensive units to an area will apply a bit of downward pressure on other parts of the housing market.

[sp332]

Not when foreign investors are buying properties as investment vehicles instead of having people live in them. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/london-prope... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/the-market/foreig...

[rhino369]

They invest because they think it's a good bet that property will rise. If you build enough housing so that housing won't keep rising in price, people will stop investing.

[Kluny]

Not always. In a lot of cases they do it because real estate is a safe, illiquid investment that will remain stable and valuable if the despots in their home country ruin the local economy or decide to seize their assets. In those cases, they don't mind if values take a hit.

[jessaustin]

That phenomenon is not common in locales in which Wal-Marts are closing.

[mcphage]

So instead of solving the problem (lack of housing that people can afford), you're going to solve a different problem (lack of expensive housing), hoping that eventually the solution trickles down to everyone else? How about, instead of adding a few hundred expensive units, you take the same amount of real estate, and add 1,000-2,000 less expensive units. It'll add more housing, as well as add it where it's needed most. Rather than waiting a few years for a game of musical chairs?

[rhino369]

The difference between luxury and non luxury apartments is mostly marketing and a some marble countertops. If there isn't more luxury stuff built, people just buy a non luxury property and make it luxury.

There might be a problem if new luxury spaces were too big, but in my experience they are still very small units. In my neighborhood the new luxury buildings have smaller units than mine. Mine isn't luxury just bcause its older and doesn't have a new kitchen.

In big expensive cities I'm not even sure how you'd build non luxury. I think you'd have to make it shitty on purpose.

[EdHominem]

You're aware that the city doesn't build the units, right? And developers only build where it's profitable.

If you think it's a good idea then start a development company, petition the city for permission, and raise money.

[mcphage]

My city is doing decently well with affordable housing, thanks.

[st3v3r]

Not nearly as much, which is why the emphasis is on affordable as well.

Further, housing is not a purely elastic good. Many luxury/high end places would rather a unit stay vacant for longer than to rent it out at lower prices to someone who might be an "undesirable".

[untog]

Not entirely. Particularly in America, housing is made as absolutely huge detached houses with two car garages and a huge garden. Nothing wrong with that, but in the space of two of those houses you could build an apartment building with apartments that are a lot more, yes, affordable.

Space is finite.

[logfromblammo]

Space is infinite. Surface area on habitable planets is relatively scarce.

Devising a way to cost-effectively stack housing volume in a way that is more acceptable to middle-class buyers than the existing condominiums or multiplexes would do much to alleviate the negative effects of suburban sprawl.

I think that elevating the street/garden level one story off ground level might work. That way you can make all the houses touch each other, and their utility easement tunnels, and still get vehicles in and out. Essentially, you pack the buildings in as tightly as possible, and make people drive or walk over the roofs to get out of the neighborhood. Heavy trucks would probably not be able to enter unless structural support for elevated roads somehow becomes much cheaper.

[dpark]

> I think that elevating the street/garden level one story off ground level might work. That way you can make all the houses touch each other, and their utility easement tunnels, and still get vehicles in and out. Essentially, you pack the buildings in as tightly as possible, and make people drive or walk over the roofs to get out of the neighborhood.

So you think that having your house literally touch neighbors on both sides and having cars drive over your roof constantly would be more appealing than current condos?

So you get no natural light from at least 2 sides, and little from the front/back (because presumably there are more homes built similarly)? You park on top and walk down a 15' set of stairs to get to your front door?

You'd be living in a home that cost twice as much to build because of the structural requirements for supporting cars. It'd be costly to maintain. And for all this, you basically get the experience of living in a tent city under a bridge.

[logfromblammo]

Or the experience of row houses with basements. Natural lighting can be provided via light pipes and modernized deck prisms. If you want outdoor views, just go upstairs to street/garden level.

The whole idea is to remove the "dead" area that is currently solely occupied by residential feeder streets and suburban setbacks.

A 1/8 acre lot (0.05 ha) is 5445 sq.ft. (506 m^2). The average total square footage of new homes in the US is now over 2500 sq. ft., usually divided over at least two levels, making the lawn and garden for many lots at least 3 times the surface area of the house itself. You only need to reinforce the parts that people will actually drive over, and that space will likely be used for laundry, storage rooms, and utility closets. The utility corridors will likely be under the roads, so that's where your power, water, network, and sewer connections will come in to the house. People are a lot more accepting of windowless reinforced concrete bearing walls in their laundry room than in their bedrooms.

If the average lot size is 1/15 acre (0.027 ha), that's 2904 sq.ft. per lot, which is a lot depth of 88' (1/60 mi) with street frontage of 33' (1/160 mi). Give the public way an easement of 66', half out of the lots on either side, with 15.5' sidewalk and greenspace on either side, and 35' street. So on the ground level, you have 33'x35' of clear space, with 33'x20' of topsoil fill for the back garden, plus 33'x33' of space that may be obstructed by soil-filled tree pits, structural support for the street, and utility pipes and conduits. On the first floor, you have 2.5' setbacks between "houses", and 20' for the back garden, giving you 28'x35' of clear building area. Then you stack a third level atop that for another 28'x35'. That's about 3000 sq.ft. of interior space, with a 660 sq.ft. private garden, plus whatever is usable under the street and sidewalk. If basements are economical for that region, that's another 1155 sq.ft., minus the area for supports and bearing walls.

In one square mile, you can then have 30 parallel 2-lane streets with on-street parking, with 8 perpendicular 4-lane streets, for 8640 total buildable lots, each having more living area than the average McMansion. Assuming that you build 40% as parks, government services, and retail rather than residences, and an average occupancy of about 4 people per home, that's 20736 people per sq.mi., which could make your square mile the 14th most densely populated muni-corp in the US, without even having any multilevel apartment buildings.

[dpark]

I don't understand what issue you think this solves. You're describing houses that abut each other and are 3 stories tall. This would be a multi level apartment building if you didn't insist on making everyone stretch their living space across three floors and you didn't assume people want most of their housing to be in a basement. I don't think neighbors "driving across your roof" is a selling feature for most people, so I don't know who you think would prefer this over multi level apartments. Or perhaps more comparable, row homes.

From what I understand here, your proposal boils down to "make the lots half as big, build the houses directly adjacent to the street, and dig a basement that extends under the street to get some interior square footage". Yes, you could do this, or you could lift the whole thing up one level so the basement isn't really a basement (though I doubt it saves you anything since it's got to be a beefy structure to hold up to road traffic, and it's still going to feel like a basement). I just don't understand why you would do this and who would want to live in this Morlock ghetto. This sounds ugly and expensive and pointless when you could build dense housing without doing any of this.

[logfromblammo]

If you don't understand the problem, I have to assume you have never lived in a multistory walk-up apartment building with breezeway stairwells.

When I did, my wish-list was as follows.

  I wish I had...
  - a window that faced a different direction.
  - more storage space.
  - a parking space closer to my pantry, and at the same level.
  - better sound insulation between neighbors.
  - an unobstructed view of the southern sky.
  - more than one possible cable provider.
  - the option for DSL.
  - a uniquely numbered address.
  - a private outdoor space, suitable for gardening.
  - another way to get in and out of the complex.

When I moved to a freestanding house in a cookie-cutter suburban subdivision, all of those wishes were fulfilled, but I had new problems.

  I wish I had...
  - no accessible/visible lawn for the homeowners association to hassle me about.
  - a shorter/easier commute.
  - locks on my outdoor faucets, because of *that neighbor*.
  - any business at all within walking distance.
  - some sort of park within walking distance.
  - no visible ugly utility boxes.
  - lower total housing and utility costs.
  - a room that I could use as a home office.

Those are all the problems I think will be solved or reduced by my simplistic solution. Plus, there's the overall problem of cheap, dense housing that might still be accepted by Americans accustomed to typical suburban/periurban freestanding houses.

[bryanlarsen]

Building more McMansions makes McMansions cheaper, which means the upper middle class moves out of their mid-scale housing and into McMansions, making mid-scale housing more affordable.

Regulations shouldn't be about affordability, they should be about density.

[untog]

But they still take up a lot more space. And that matters. Jobs are still usually centered on a specific area, the further you move from that area the less convenient it is to live there and travel to work. That's how we ended up with the suburbs in the first place.

> Regulations shouldn't be about affordability, they should be about density.

That's essentially a different label for the same thing. Affordable housing is dense housing.

[VLM]

> Affordable housing is dense housing.

In constrained cities. In the linked article there's a pix of the dead walmart in Beaver Dam Wisconsin. I've visited family there, in fact I stayed at the hotel across the street from the dead walmart. It was part of a dead mall, I think. The relevance of this is the new, larger supercenter is literally across the street from a corn farm. Not an isolated farm either.

If your job, perhaps being a retired grandmother, does not require living in the center of silicon valley, then its a VERY nice place to live with tons of outdoor recreation.

Affordable usually implies much lower income, and lower income implies less geographic constraint. The "centeredness" of the job you mention depends incredibly strongly on job title and pay rate. The legendary extreme centeredness of startup jobs is very important to startups, but the other 300+ million citizens live a much less centered life.

[st3v3r]

Not really. Silicon Valley still needs 7-11 clerks, fast food workers, social workers, and other lower paying jobs.

[jessaustin]

That's a problem for Silicon Valley, not for Beaver Dam, WI.

[bryanlarsen]

"That's essentially a different label for the same thing. Affordable housing is dense housing."

In cities, affordable housing is almost always dense. It doesn't apply in the other direction, though. Dense housing isn't necessarily affordable.

But, building more dense housing increases the supply of affordable housing almost 1:1, even if the new dense housing isn't affordable.

[st3v3r]

Trickle down economics doesn't work.

[theorique]

Generally the term "affordable housing" refers to living spaces (apartments or houses) that can be rented or purchased by people or families who earn less than a specific benchmark.

[a_c_s]

In theory sure: in practice the housing supply would have to change more drastically for 5 bedroom / 7 bathroom mansions to become affordable to most people than for modest 2 bedroom / 2 bathroom ranch-style houses.

[Kluny]

In my town, it means rugged but not luxurious rental apartments, 2 and 3 bedrooms so a family could live there. A lot of rental rental stock available in my town is bachelor apartments or single bedrooms in huge houses full of roommates - not suitable for families, and so scarce that people end up couchsurfing for months while they look for a place. The other choice is a single-family detached or a townhouse. $300,000 gets you a cheap townhouse and the benchmark single-family detached is $700,000.

[nutheracc]

Affordable housing could also refer to rural housing, admittedly ignoring context. I don't like the term, sorry. It's spun to be more positive than small housing which is more accurate.