Today’s luxury apartments may be tomorrow’s affordable housing

[JManc]

Originally Posted by BG918

In many cities the suburban garden-style apartment complexes built on periphery of cities in the 70's and 80's are where the affordable housing is located. Some of these clusters are now modern-day slums and will likely stay that way. Think Vickery Meadows in Dallas, Gulfton in Houston, etc. I see a similar situation happening to the ubiquitous 5-6 story "wood-frame over podium" apartment projects popping up all over U.S. cities.

Gulfton area and other similarly aged complexes around Houston (assuming same for Dallas) were never really luxury. Gulfton was known as a singles mecca back in its prime which was the draw not so much the apartments themselves. They were hastily constructed (with a limited lifespan) to cope with the massive influx of population during the 70's and 80's. The population today is less transient so the newer stuff being developed is built for more long term and to a more upscale market. Their decline would be mainly due to demographic/ socioeconomic shifts.

[Qubert]

Also, we need to stop using the word "affordability" because that is quickly becoming a word with no meaning in urban planning circles. If one wants to be a full on smart-ass then Billionaires Row on 57th st is "affordable" since the people buying there aren't struggling to make those payments.

This is about low income housing. Period. We don't want to say that because then all kinds of social/cultural baggage comes out but in effect this is what we are talking about. With that established, I personally think we all should resign ourselves to the fact that market driven solutions will simply never be able to adequately respond to this segment of the market. This is one area where I confess the Left is in fact correct. Once regular housing has filtered to being "low income", then it's usually a sign either the structure itself or the neighborhood around it has degraded to a point that it's not really socially healthy anymore. Low income housing is best served by voucher or inclusive zoning schemes. However, for the everyone outside the bottom 20-25% of the income scale, market forces tend to be the best way to produce affordability.

[mhays]

The world is full of euphamisms. What the hell is "special needs," which should refer to basically everybody? "Affordable," however, has a larger connotation than "low." Some more descriptive terminology would be good, but it would need varied levels.