[adameasterling]

This is a fantastic article.

Burdensome regulations on housing construction have caused costs to skyrocket. Minimum lot sizes, setback requirements, square footage minimums, floor-area ratio restrictions, overzealous height restrictions, parking requirements, abuse of environmental reviews, historic designations, community reviews, overzealous MFH requirements (like double-stair), below-market mandates, all have worked together to constrain supply, leading to skyrocketing costs.

It's the single most important economic issue for me. We need a nationwide effort to ease these restrictions, or we're just going to continue to see rents eat up more and more of young people's earnings.

[gamepsys]

Just curious, are there any regulations on housing you agree with? There tends to be belief that housing regulations exist to limit supply. Let's not forget that many of these encourage safety and are cost effective ways to increase the quality of life of the residents. If we take deregulation and cheap housing to the extreme we end up with shanty towns.

[mperham]

None of the things he mentioned have anything to do with safety.

[gamepsys]

Environmental review, community review, and MFH standards all have something to do with safety. It's not like root comment is arguing against fire hydrants or carbon monoxide detectors. I'm just arguing not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[mperham]

We have zoning and internationally recognized building safety codes already.

Our current housing emergency happening everywhere is a pretty good indicator that we should be much more aggressive about trimming back the regulatory state which has ossified our cities.

[eru]

Zoning is already pretty bad (at least in the US), and doesn't really have anything to do with safety.

In the sense that even without zoning laws, there were already public nuisance laws that wouldn't have allowed you to open a coal fired power plant next to a Kindergarten.

[gamepsys]

Zoning laws have a lot to do with safety & public health. Industrial zoning is far away from residential because factories produce pollution.

Edit: Some parts of zoning law has to do with safety/health. Some parts don't. Some parts are about more than one thing.

When I was growing up there was a chemical fire in a factory in town. People were evacuated. Luckily, very few homes were evacuated because zoning laws kept homes far away from the factory. The residential area that was evacuated was low density.

The point I'm trying to make is that there is some value in some of these rules.

[seanmcdirmid]

> Our current housing emergency happening everywhere is a pretty good indicator that we should be much more aggressive about trimming back the regulatory state which has ossified our cities.

That isn't true though. Our housing emergency is limited to places that are growing and thriving. There isn't a housing emergency in Detroit or much of the midwest for example, just not many are thrilled about moving to those places (or want to leave them as soon as possible).

[astrange]

Those places that don't have housing emergencies generally have just as bad regulations, and would have the same problems the instant they became appealing enough to move there. Eventually you run out of built out sprawl.

[scythe]

>internationally recognized building safety codes

I mean, the "International Building Code" is a little bit like the "World Series"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Building_Code

>"Calling it 'international' keeps it from being called the 'U.S. Building Code.'" explains Bill Tangye, SBCCI Chief Executive Officer.

[greenthrow]

Your argument doesn't really make sense because the problem isn't lack of houses or apartments, there's plenty of places to put everyone. The problem is one of affordability. The costs of stuff that already exists and has existed for ages isn't really tied to the current cost to build, even if we buy the specious argument that all regulation raises costs and those costs are inevitably passed directly to tenants.

[bluGill]

supply and eemand sets rents. You you rent perfecly good existing houses cheap in rural areas. Nobody wants to like there.

There is no reason to think there is enourh room for everyone who wants to like in San Francisco, and statistics prove they heve not been building much. Mean while in other states we find areas of demand where housing is not expensive. Where I live you can rent one bedroom apartments for under $1000, mohe in won't be until spring as the building is still under construction. The owners are planning on starting the next building when this is done. That is what allosing building does.

[loeg]

Setbacks, parking minimums and floor area ratios have nothing to do with safety. Community reviews have absolutely nothing to do with safety.

[sokoloff]

Side setbacks absolutely have an effect on fire safety (a greater distance gives less propensity to ignite the neighboring building and provides access with which to fight the original structure fire).

Front setbacks and lot area coverage ratios have a more minor version of this same effect from fires across the street. It takes a pretty good sized fire to ignite the building across a street, but as density increases and more of a lot's area is able to covered with structures, the chances to get a pretty good sized fire going do increase.

[ajmurmann]

> Side setbacks absolutely have an effect on fire safety

Sure, but is the benefit worth the cost? Manhattan and denser European cities without those haven't burned down since we fireproofed building materials

[Schiendelman]

And yet other areas let buildings be physically against each other if they're built not to spread fire. Just let everyone do that.

[seanmcdirmid]

Ya. My setback is 3 feet, definitely just a margin for fire safety. I wanted to put an awning in but couldn't because it would be too close to the fence of my property boundary (I live in a town home that abuses the 3 foot setback to maximize living space).

[gamepsys]

> Community review

Any feedback brought up in a community review is on official record. I have witnessed safety concerns being brought up in community review multiple times that caused changes to the building plan. In one situation it was a very serious concern about blocking fire truck access to an elementary school.

[bluGill]

why didn't the code catch that?

[jjulius]

Careful with those absolutes.

[u32480932048]

In practice, the <environmental stuff> has mostly been used by non-environmentalists to delay development they simply don't like. (This one has to do specifically with CA, but it's not the first time I've seen this complaint.)

"Projects designed to advance California’s environmental policy objectives are the most frequent targets of CEQA lawsuits: transit is the most frequently challenged type of infrastructure project (edging out challenges to both highways and local roadways); renewable energy is the most frequently challenged type of industrial/utility project; and housing (especially higher-density housing) is the most frequently challenged type of private-sector project."

"Our study found repeated examples of intentional efforts to cloak the identity of CEQA litigants behind environmental-sounding names of fake and even unlawful “associations.”"

https://www.planningreport.com/2015/12/21/new-ceqa-study-rev...

[nullc]

I'm clueless on the subject and don't intend to argue the point, but it struck me that the metric that article consistently uses is one that almost guarantees the results: It's not surprising to learn that the categories that have the greatest amount of activity by far are the ones with the most CEQA challenges.

The point would be much stronger if it was made in terms the rate of challenges for varrious project types rather then in terms of frequency of CEQA challenges being that kind of project.

The assumption I'd draw from that, being ignorant of the subject, is that the argument is unsupportable on that more reasonable basis.

[xvedejas]

From what I've seen of environmental review laws, they mostly just have to do with noise and construction nuisance. Whereas community review is mostly about aesthetics. I don't think these are the tools designed for safety.

[worik]

> None of the things he mentioned have anything to do with safety.

I quibble. Mentioned double stair

I thought of Grenfell Tower block

That was catastrophic partly because the one stairwell filled with smoke

[adaml_623]

Double stair Vs single stair is totally a safety issue

[alistairSH]

One that much of Europe has mitigated somehow.

[quickthrower2]

It is all about the scenario where you die in a single stair where the second stair would have saved you being probably non existent in c21. Especially as you will have fire doors.

I reckon single is safer: no decision to make as you exit.

[seanmcdirmid]

By building their buildings out of brick rather than wood. Though its probably overkill here in the states and canada.

[ksplicer]

Even our wood has so much fire safety chemicals baked in now that it's not nearly as flammable as it used to be. The safety standards should be reevaluated. Plus, I'm sure that there are some developers who would happily build the whole MFH out of concrete if it lets them only use a single stair.

[eru]

You already have shanty towns with all the regulation.

Making housing cheaper also means making higher quality housing cheaper.

[seanmcdirmid]

We don't really have shanty towns in the states. We definitely don't have a Kowloon Walled City, which is an example of what can happen when no regulations are involved (and somewhat remarkably not burn down and kind of thrive even if still a slum).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

[kspacewalk2]

If only we can have something between a McMansion filled North American suburb and Kowloon Walled City.

[seanmcdirmid]

Hong Kong is super dense and super expensive, Shanghai is similar, but at Mainland Chinese prices. I'm all for density, but anyone who thinks that density alone solves affordability issues simply hasn't travel enough.

[eru]

Density is a way to deal with expensive housing. Not a cause of it.

[eru]

> We don't really have shanty towns in the states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tent_cities_in_the_Uni...

[seanmcdirmid]

Tent cities != shanty towns. Shanty towns are like semi-permanent buildings, tents are just...tents you buy at REI and then set up at the park with your stuff. We had one nearby my house at the Seattle Ballard commons that lasted during COVID (and is gone now). I wouldn't have called it a shanty town like I saw in the Philippines.

[sroussey]

Go to skid row in LA. Going on 50 years or more.

[camgunz]

Eh, Skid Row is pretty famous, but if you're willing to broaden the definition a little the US has lots of slums [0].

[0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/08/more-am...

[ajmurmann]

Maybe it's OK if some housing is less perfect and closer to ashanty town. I'd rather live in a shanty town than a cardboard box under the freeway. If nobody wants to live in the "shanty town" nobody will move in and no investor will want to build another one. I sometimes think that the provocative way of putting all this is that we need more slum lords. They filled a need.

[brtkdotse]

> Making housing cheaper also means making higher quality housing cheaper.

Or, much more likely, builder profits higher.

[eru]

Nothing wrong with that.

Competition will sort that out.

[anon291]

> If we take deregulation and cheap housing to the extreme we end up with shanty towns.

That's possible, but, considering that all the most expensive places in this country were developed in the very way this article is advocating, I'm going to label it as improbable.

Many amongst my friends and family think I'm a bit crazy living in the inner city, but the truth is my equity has skyrocketed, and will continue to do so. Urban dwellings are in high demand. Given that many of these same urban dwellings are illegal to construct now / prohibitively expensive, we've handicapped the ability of the market to meet demand.

[gamepsys]

I use to look at buying a 60+ year old condo/coop on the west coast, until I looked at the earthquake statistics and safety standards of brick multistory buildings. Now I know why the newer steel buildings cost 2-6x the old brick buildings in the same neighborhood.

[Aeolun]

I’m doubtful they actually cost more to construct?

[mcculley]

> There tends to be belief that housing regulations exist to limit supply.

It is often more the case that limited supply is an unintended outcome. People just don’t think ahead.

[peteey]

>limited supply is an unintended outcome.

I have been to many city council meetings. Stymieing population growth is an explicit goal. The speakers tend to perceive harms from more people as opposed to pure misanthropes.

e.g. "More people creates more traffic so we should prevent housing to prevent people"

Although, I cannot see their true intents. It is possible the speakers do dislike people, which is not politically popular. Expressing their desire requires making up other tangential causes. Hidden agendas creates engineering confusion. If the goal was truly to manage traffic, an engineer would suggest better bus routes.

[mcculley]

The people who attend council meetings are not at all representative of the general myopia that results in so much regulation.

Yes, I have also attended such meetings and interact with NIMBYs. They are part of the problem. General myopia is the bigger problem.

[hackerlight]

Physical safety (structural integrity and fire safety), noise transmission and ventilation. I think regulations around these 3 aspects can help more than they hurt. Beyond these items, I would be skeptical.

[xnx]

> There tends to be belief that housing regulations exist to limit supply.

Also to enrich union tradespeople. See prohibitions against PEX plumbing and requirements for electrical conduit instead of Romex.

[twiddling]

Don't forget about street widths being determined by the ability to turn around fire equipment.

[bombcar]

If it makes you feel any better the oldest streets around here are wider than newer ones, because they had to be able to turn a wagon with a team of horses.

[trgn]

This was the seed that destroyed the American city. Roads were humongous 100 years before car was invented. It was fine, a buffer for the smoke and filth of the industrial city, but still multipurpose, accessible. Once cars started driving on these huge expanses, it turned every city street in a highway; dangerous, polluted, noisy, pushing out other uses, ...

[seanmcdirmid]

That sounds like what they did in Salt Lake City.

[elliotto]

Having streets unable to be accessible by fire response vehicles doesn't seem like a good idea. What would be the alternative here? (genuine question, I'm not from the US)

[akavi]

Smaller fire trucks.

[mortenjorck]

Indeed, this is a thoroughly solved problem thanks to countries like Japan where urban planning typically allows meandering networks of narrow, pedestrian-friendly streets.

This article has some nice points of comparison between typical American firetrucks and a Japanese firetruck: https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Meet-Kiri-the-tiny...

[Paul-Craft]

How do you plan to make the fires smaller as well?

[andy81]

Use two trucks when needed?

This is a really simple fix that the rest of the world does better.

[beejiu]

Copy paste from Europe, where they are about half the size?

[rangestransform]

B-b-b-b-but bUY amERiCa

[neuronexmachina]

Some possible reasons for why American fire trucks tend to be larger:

* more frequently sent to rural homes, where there might not be an available hydrant, so they need to transport all the water they're likely to need

* same for wildfires

* American homes more likely to be wood+drywall

[aga98mtl]

And yet, European cities exist and are fine without wide streets.

[eru]

Keep in mind that Europeans tend to build with stone / bricks, and Americans tend to build with wood.

Lots of safety regulations stem from that divide. Wood is a bit more flammable.

(I'm not saying the difference in safety regulations still make sense today. I'm talking about one of the historical origins of the divide.)

[jenadine]

In the north of Europe it is mostly wood

[eru]

Houses are still less likely to be build from wood than in the US.

[actionfromafar]

Hm.. couldn't a fire engine be driven in reverse? It could have an emergency driver's wheel in the back. I have seen crane trucks driven with a joystick from outside the vehicle, so it doesn't seem impossible.

[alistairSH]

Or it could just be smaller like in the rest of the world.

[keenmaster]

We can make them turn 360 degrees like the electric G-Wagon. If upgrading the fleet of firefighting trucks to do so costs less than the value brought by tighter spacing of homes, it’s worth it.

[eru]

Well, you can learn from other parts of the world, instead of coming up with solutions from scratch. (But yes, if nothing else your solution would probably work.)

If you time your upgrade to the fire engines with when you naturally would want to renew them anyway, then it doesn't really cost much extra.

[m463]

looks like building heights haven't been held back...

[willis936]

A lot of these zoning changes lower the already low barrier for multinationals to build, but does nothing for actual families. I'm presently surrounded by hundreds of empty units priced out of reach because these companies are illegally colluding to fix the price. They may claim ignorance and try to launder responsibility through a series of tech products, but at the end of the day the rent is high where I am because of price fixing.

[robertlagrant]

Sorry I don't understand - why would they be selling units, but also deliberately pricing them too high?

[squokko]

It has to do with the company's balance sheet - their list of assets which they use to borrow money.

If they have 1000 units that they say are worth $1 million each, they can borrow from banks as if they are sitting on $1 billion of assets.

If they sell one of those units at $500K, they now look like they have $500 million, which not only impedes their future borrowing but can trigger obligations to their current lenders.

[robertlagrant]

It would be surprising if they can just not sell things because they're too expensive, and then borrow based on that too expensive price. Why not just have a single one and price it at $1bn?

[yccs27]

To get more money? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing

[robertlagrant]

But they're standing empty. If they're empty, they're not getting any money.

[willis936]

They're maximizing revenue by operating at a lower quantity and higher cost. This is microeconomics 101. People get driven out of urban areas where there are good paying jobs. In an ideal market this should be undercut by competition. In reality all available housing in urban areas are owned by large corporations all using the same price-setting backend. This is an illegal trust supercharged by the internet and globalization. It's an international Pottersville rapidly sprung from nowhere. So no, big corporations don't need more government handouts to do more of the same. Incentives for not-profit-driven entities (such as humans seeking secure housing) should be given.

https://www.propublica.org/article/doj-backs-tenants-price-f...

[hammock]

How is double stair MFH overzealous? I can’t control if my neighbor blocks the stairwell with a couch that gets stuck while he’s moving in and now I have no egress if my other neighbor starts a fire.

I’m in favor of greater freedoms, and the freedom to choose a single stair MFH if I want.

But I don’t want.

[kspacewalk2]

A couch and a fire and that couch can't be pushed over or jumped over... That's quite a contrived scenario. I suspect that most of the improvements in the fire safety record of apartment buildings have to do with other factors like materials used, fireproof stair doors, etc etc. The reason I think the two stairs don't do much is that first world countries exist outside North America, they don't have this rule, and their fire safety is just as good or better than ours.

Same reason I'm extremely skeptical that our fire trucks need to be so grotesquely large, despite what the fire departments claim. If there were no countries with a good fire safety record outside North America, like sure, okay, maybe. But they're just as good or better at fighting fires in Europe, and manage to go this with human sized trucks that don't require extremely wide streets, wide turn radiuses, and aren't nearly as deadly for pedestrians as a result. Thanks for existing, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc! One day we'll accept that you to cities, building and engineering better and just copy you.

[u801e]

> A couch and a fire and that couch can't be pushed over or jumped over.

Not everyone is young and in shape to push couches or jump over them.

[pzone]

If you have mobility issues that prevent you from exiting your building easily then you can move somewhere else. We don’t need to make every apartment building in the country more expensive for this extremely specific scenario.

[u801e]

I can go up and down unobstructed stairs without any issues, but I have back problems which keep me from doing heavy lifting and I'm in no condition to jump or climb over a sofa in the middle of a flight of stairs.

The real problem here is expecting people to be able bodied enough to deal with a lack of alternative exits when someone in the same building inevitably is careless enough to start a fire.

[lukas099]

So even more contrived

[hammock]

>A couch and a fire and that couch can't be pushed over or jumped over... That's quite a contrived scenario. I suspect that most of the improvements in the fire safety record of apartment buildings have to do with other factors like materials used, fireproof stair doors, etc etc.

I suppose you also think it’s silly for flight crew to confirm people sitting in the exit row are able and willing to help in an emergency.

Couldn’t you just push them out of the way or jump over them?

[nkrisc]

> A couch and a fire and that couch can't be pushed over or jumped over...

You’re 85.

[porkbeer]

Or maybe they have small children. Wtf man.

[kdmccormick]

> I can’t control if my neighbor blocks the stairwell with a couch that gets stuck while he’s moving in and now I have no egress if my other neighbor starts a fire.

That is an extremely specific situation!

> How is double stair MFH overzealous?

There is a cost to every regulation. The cost to this one is that housing is more expensive for all Americans. Stress, poverty, and homelessness all lead to negative health outcomes. Taken as a whole, those negative outcomes may very well outweigh the fire safety benefits of double-stair (which have never been proven to exist).

> I’m in favor of greater freedoms, and the freedom to choose a single stair MFH if I want. > But I don’t want.

Right, so it sounds like you are in favor of removing the double-stair regulation?

[hammock]

>That is an extremely specific situation!

It’s an example. Can you generalize it or should I?

[kelseyfrog]

Here's a hypothetical for a two-stairwell building: two couches.

We can avoid this dangerous scenario with a three-stairwell minimum requirement.

[hammock]

Good point. Why do we even bother with two-lane roads and a double yellow line? Such a waste of space. Very contrived to presume there is always a car coming the other way

[kdmccormick]

You're comparing a situation that happens all the time (opposing traffic) with one that happens extremely rarely (blocked stairwell in a fire). If anything, you're strengthening my point.

We should design for situations to a level that is appopriate given their frequency and severity. Show me evidence that MANDATING the extra stairwell justifies the huge increase in national housing cost, and I'll concede.

[kelseyfrog]

Sorry, but the only thing that will change my mind is a significantly casualty different between single stairwell and dual-stairwell buildings accounting for building age, construction type, property value, and occupant demographics.

Happy to hear evidence-based arguments.

[sunshowers]

The US would certainly be a nicer place to live if there were more roads with just one lane, like many older cities and suburbs already have.

[matsemann]

Why would you need two lanes in each direction, except perhaps on a highway..? I agree, such a waste of space.

[Paradigma11]

I just dont think it would really help that often. It is not the stairwells that are burning, it is some appartment on a floor below. Your problem is going to be smoke and visibility, not some couch blocking the stair. If those stairs are connected, you will most likely have smoke everywhere and will have no clue if one stair is safer than the other.

[TaylorAlexander]

> How is double stair MFH overzealous?

I suggest reading the article, which is intended to answer this question in depth. It provides concrete examples!

[hammock]

As a safety measure, it doesn’t, unless I missed something. In fact it says there has been barely any analysis

[Klaster_1]

Check out this video, which argues against double stair MFH - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM.

[Paradigma11]

That doesnt help you because another neighbor is moving out and blocking the second staircase with another couch. This is the reason why you should have three staircases and only two neighbors. Though a problem arises if a neighbor is able to block a staircase and start a fire at the same time. That has to be checked beforehand.

[cheriot]

We should require two stairs for single family housing as well.

The elderly and disabled will also need to get furniture up stairs. Not to mention that the housing shortage forces more people to share a house with strangers.

[shiroiuma]

>Not to mention that the housing shortage forces more people to share a house with strangers.

Or, you could just build more housing... And stop insisting on so much living space while you're at it. Here in Tokyo, no one lives with strangers, even if they get minimum wage. They can still afford an apartment by themselves, though it'll be a very small apartment that's certainly illegal to build in America.

[cheriot]

I agree. That was an attempt at reductio ad absurdum.

[amarshall]

The couch goes in the elevator, not the stairwell.

[wolverine876]

> Burdensome regulations on housing construction have caused costs to skyrocket.

How much have costs increased, and what tells us that it's regulations, not many other causes?

Also, which regulations? Some are more valuable, some less, and inevitably some will misfire. I'm not just going to trust real estate developers, who have their own interests, to meet other needs.

> below-market mandates

I'm not sure we need more high-end development - those tenants have plenty of options.

> community reviews

In cities, new buildings can impact a community for a century. They should have a say, not just a developer from another city.

[cheriot]

> Also, which regulations?

The entire article is on the prohibition of single stair multi-family residential.

> I'm not sure we need more high-end development - those tenants have plenty of options.

This is silly. When car makers couldn't make enough cars in 2021 and the price went up, was the solution to ban making new cars? Should we have prohibited making cars with fancy trim? Having enough housing for everyone is the only way to make sure affordable housing exists.

[wolverine876]

Cities have seen plenty of high-end housing built (afaik), and yet there is still a lack of affordable housing.

Building more expensive homes doesn't seem to increase availability of affordable ones. The idea that it would seems to be another 'trickle-down economics' theory, the one from the 1980s that if we help the wealthy get wealthier, the benefits will 'trickle-down' (turns out, only the first step worked). Reasonably, wealthy people don't see poor housing as an option, though there is gentrification.

> When car makers couldn't make enough cars in 2021 and the price went up, was the solution to ban making new cars? Should we have prohibited making cars with fancy trim?

Making expensive cars wouldn't seem to result in many more affordable ones.

> This is silly.

An aggressive assertion that you aren't thinking, and aren't willing to.

[akanet]

You are mistaken, modern housing construction in major cities is far below historical numbers

[wolverine876]

I've seen plenty of high-end apartments and condos, etc., but that's a small market and therefore low overall quantity.

[cheriot]

> Cities have seen plenty of high-end housing built (afaik), and yet there is still a lack of affordable housing.

They permit office space for more workers than bedrooms. A big clue: pandemic aside, commutes get longer every year.

> The idea that it would seems to be another 'trickle-down economics' theory, the one from the 1980s that if we help the wealthy get wealthier, the benefits will 'trickle-down' (turns out, only the first step worked). Reasonably, wealthy people don't see poor housing as an option, though there is gentrification.

I see you're versed in the left-NIMBY lingo. No, 'trickle down economics' was an excuse for the wealthy to pay lower taxes. When fancy new housing is built, the property taxes are higher.

> Making expensive cars wouldn't seem to result in many more affordable ones.

I think you're intentionally missing the point. The price came down when more cars could be manufactured.

[adameasterling]

Err, I just enumerated many regulations I have a problem with in the very post you quoted, and evidence is pretty strong that it's the combined effect of all of those regulations that results in higher costs. [1] I realized I left off overuse of exclusively single-family zoning, which is the worst offender. [2]

> I'm not sure we need more high-end development - those tenants have plenty of options.

Evidence is strong that market-rate construction causes richer residents to exchange their current unit for a higher-end unit, opening up supply at the lower end. [3]

The problem with BMR requirements is the increased costs borne by developers, who have to offset those increased costs by charging more for the market rate units. There's a limit to that market, so fewer units are constructed than otherwise would be. Middle class families are especially worse off, as they neither qualify for BMR lotteries, nor earn enough for the rapidly accelerating market-rate unit. [4]

Further, rents are lower in states that disallow BMR mandates (like Texas) than those that have BMR mandates (like California).

1. https://www.axios.com/2019/08/28/study-californias-land-use-... 2. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/05/business/single-family-zoning... 3. https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/market-rate-development-... 4. https://escholarship.org/content/qt036599mr/qt036599mr_noSpl...

[jojobas]

Yet people keep flocking to them dreadful single-family-home-majority cities, happy to pay rent and all.

[ksplicer]

I don't know anyone starting a family happy with the situation. Most people I know are moving to suburbs only because they can't get 3 bedroom apartments in cities. If MFH's became broadly available I think many new families would flock there.

[jojobas]

Everyone I spoke to who has lived with kids in both flats and houses on 600sqm blocks prefers the latter, commute (which commute?) be damned.

[slyall]

I'll guess this is people who can afford a big stand-alone house in a nice area

[porkbeer]

Or Those who want to know their kids are safe and have a place to play.

[slyall]

Not much use wanting to have a stand-alone place if you can't afford it.