[crooked-v]

The reason you don't see those is that middle-density housing is indirectly or directly illegal in almost every major US metro area. Developers would love to build that kind of thing because it gets snapped up immediately wherever it's available, but they're not allowed to do so.

[samstave]

There is another reason - single-family dwelling housing.

As an example I proposed to the City of Alameda a few years back to develop a tiny-home community on the base end of the island...

I was working with tiny home manufacturers but the city had their zoning laws set that tiny homes would not work - even in a planned area:

the zoning requirements were that each lot must be 2,000 SF min. for any dwelling - and can only have one primary entrance... but here was the reason that is important:

You could not put more than one unit on anything less than 2,000 as multiple units in that area cannot have separate entrances and shared utilities - otherwise its condidered an apartment building and would require a single entrance, cannot share power, water, etc.

Sothe zoning laws (and permitting process) need to be overhauled in most municipalities to accomodate tiny home groups - regardless if the intended residents are from the homeless population or single/couples that want that lifestyle irrespective income/career style.

[wyldfire]

Townhomes are present all over the city of Austin and surrounding areas. At least in this case it's not an obstacle.

[lukas099]

Of course they are present. That doesn't mean the market is supplying them in anywhere near the quantity demanded.

[crooked-v]

Philadelphia is another of the rare counterexamples, as the zoning there allows new row houses and townhouses almost everywhere.

[lukas099]

Philly is an old city. It probably already had townhomes everywhere, and would benefit from allowing further stages of density.

[xienze]

I don’t think townhouses are anywhere near as rare as you’re letting on. I’ve can’t recall the last time I haven’t seen them in any decent-sized (50k+) city.

[cpursley]

Yep, there’s even a website dedicated to this:

https://missingmiddlehousing.com/

[bequanna]

This rings false. Townhomes are seen in large numbers in almost all suburbs and I don’t think they inspire the same NIMBY fury that apartments do.

[heavyset_go]

In my experience, they do, but they're marketed as luxury housing so the stigma isn't as apparent to your typical person who is sympathetic to NIMBYism.

[closeparen]

Townhomes are seen in large numbers in the form of townhome developments i.e. pave a parking lot off a major road and throw up several rows of townhomes in it. What is less often permitted is for an existing city grid to have a mix of single-family and townhomes, or for older single-family homes to be replaced by townhomes as an area becomes more in demand.

[crooked-v]

> large numbers

Any "large" numbers you see are still decades behind the amount of construction needed to actually meet demand (https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives...).

[CapitalistCartr]

Here in Florida they're not "seen in large numbers", they're dwarfed by the ordinary suburban single-family dwellings, both already built, and new developments going up like wildfire. Every other form of housing combined is dwarfed by them.

[travoc]

A tiny home installed adjacent to other tiny homes is just called an “apartment” and there are millions of them across the U.S.

[crooked-v]

Middle-density housing is all the things that are in between a single home and an apartment building: duplexes and triplexes, row houses, dense townhouses, multiple small cottages on a single plot of land, etc. They're typically all both cheaper to build than apartment buildings and better liked by the residents, but zoning in most US cities doesn't allow any of it.