[lacker]

Personally I think they look pretty good.

The really ugly buildings, at least in San Francisco and Oakland that I'm familiar with, are where they take a single family house and chop it up into a bunch of little apartments. It's such an illogical abomination. From the outside you have a bunch of doors stuck in crazy places, kind of a "shanty town" vibe. From the inside all the rooms are weirdly shaped and extra plumbing is stuck in where it doesn't make sense.

It reminds me of the old joke about C++, that it's like designing an octopus by nailing extra legs onto a dog.

Anyway, I would like to see all of those replaced with something-over-1 apartment buildings.

[vineyardmike]

Oh no I completely disagree. SF has some of the best dense architecture IMO. Duplex/triplex/etc townhomes give density without having big overwhelming buildings. It means you don’t have big stretches of road without variance or entrance in the building you’re walking against. It also often gives garages and small backyards which a lot of people want.

I will agree that it means there’s a lot more individual maintenance required with more facade space having more owners. So poorer neighborhoods look… poorer.