The Suburban Apartment Complex: defeating the whole point of multi-family housing

[SFBruin]

I think that these can actually be kind of nice. Or maybe average.

They often come with their own landscaping, central amenities (like laundry, etc.) and plentiful parking.

[C.]

I think some are missing the point of the OP. It's not a city vs suburbs debate. It's that higher density housing in the suburbs is segregated from the rest of the community. Instead of having a massive apartment complex, the community would be better served if multi-family housing was sprinkled throughout the community.

Blame zoning and the NIMBYs.

In this example out of Toronto new, multi-family housing with retail at the base is being built at the street corner among new and old single-family homes. It's an example of integrating multi-family housing into the community well, IMO.

Streeview: https://goo.gl/maps/Uk96vyznMzDF3tga9
Aerial: https://goo.gl/maps/FszYkvjeF6prg5sd6

[SFBruin]

I am very confident that I missed OPs point, sorry.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Nautica

I know this may come as a shock to the urbanites on this forum but a lot of people do NOT want to live in a dense city with too many people, cars, traffic, limited shopping choices, etc. They actually prefer suburbs with large Targets, Home Depots and chain restaurants. Did you ever consider that a lot of new couples live in these apartment complexes because they are saving to purchase a SFH in that same suburb. Its true a lot of these complex dwellers also live there because its the most affordable. But how is that different from urbanites, who live in 20 story apartment complexes? Its affordable and most homes in the city are astronomical in cost. I say if suburban areas are too much of a blight to look at then just stay in the city, where its safe. Lol.

And you seem shocked that people in an urbanism forum has trouble to understand how people live entire lives glued in a car seat driving around horrible parking lots.

[jd3189]

If that’s the original point of the OP, I would agree. Garden apartments like the one I posted at South Beach are better options for maintaining density in the suburbs. But in places with “terrible” urban sprawl like areas around Atlanta, the gated apartment complex surrounded by surface parking is still a good option for those who want affordability. I can’t really fault them and don’t see why people here who go far to say that only the low class settle for these. Regardless, this is largely the reality for most of America and it’s going to be difficult to ever change this.

But I do agree that a good mixture of garden apartments, standard new urbanism complexes, and new townhouses should be the 3 major middle housing plans for the suburbs.

[mhays]

New suburban housing has been increasingly urban in form. It's the back-to-the-city movement's suburban corollary.

I mean apartments right up to the sidewalk, with retail in some places, and with the parking below grade or at least in above-grade garages. Often these are in walkable mixed-use districts, and often there's at least decent bus service.

Most residents might still drive most places. But they can often walk to get neighborhood basics.

This is obviously a key housing type for affordability. And it's a huge part of keeping sprawl in check as well as invigorating those suburban areas, which can become urban over time.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by C.

I think some are missing the point of the OP. It's not a city vs suburbs debate. It's that higher density housing in the suburbs is segregated from the rest of the community. Instead of having a massive apartment complex, the community would be better served if multi-family housing was sprinkled throughout the community.

Blame zoning and the NIMBYs.

ding! ding! ding!

somebody got my point.

the reason i contrasted the suburban example with my city neighborhood was to show the difference between mixing up housing types vs. "we'll build all of the middle class houses over here, and then stick all of the poors over there, that way everyone stays in their own little economic class bubble, as god intended.".

at our random little residential side street intersection in chicago, there's an apartment building kitty corner from us that has a couple of studios that rent for $900/month. and then directly across the street from us there's a large SFH that zillow says is worth $900K. and in between those two extremes there's a whole range of "missing middle" 1, 2, & 3 bedroom apartments and condos at all different price points, all mixed-up and jumbled together.

IMO, that's simply a FAR better way to build a community than the binary "you can either buy a house here, or rent a unit at the big apartment complex down the road. those are the only two housing options in this community. now, if you'd please tell me your AGI, we can immediately settle that issue and get started".

[dave8721]

Suburban garden apartments serve one purpose and one purpose only. They are the cheapest form of housing out there. Also they are were people live who want to live in a certain neighborhood (for the schools for example) but can't afford a house in that neighborhood. People live in these because they are inexpensive, if they were in a more desirable walkable area, the people who live in them probably wouldn't be able to afford to live in them.

[Reverberation]

Originally Posted by Crawford

These types of complexes are pretty much the new American slum. At the least, they're at the very bottom of the totem pole of relative desirability. So, yeah, they suck, and combine the worst of both worlds.

They are also notoriously hard to police. In Houston the old stock of dilapidated garden style complexes prove to be perfect gang headquarters.

[Doady]

Multi-family housing has the highest density, so it should be concentrated near retail, offices, rail and bus lines, to minimize distances and thus increase the chances of people walking, cycling, and taking transit. For high density to be located randomly and sprinkled evenly throughout the neighbourhood or the city would not take full advantage of the benefits of higher density because it would not reduce the distances as much. It would just be contrary to the whole concept of TOD.

The second example in the OP, the location of high density is not so important, because the neighbourhood is much higher density overall. But in a suburb, where the overall density is much lower, strategically locating high density is critical.

I offer a third example, of a suburban corridor with no connection to the central city, but the buses are operating at 3 minute frequency during rush hour and they are so overcrowded that they are now being replaced with light rail. Would this have happened if they ignored the concept of TOD and just placed high density randomly everywhere instead of concentrating all that high density along one corridor?

[edale]

I guess I don't really understand the central complaint of this thread. Is it that the suburbs have crappier land use patterns than cities? Because that's plenty obvious to anyone on this forum. If the argument is about economic segregation, there's plenty of that in central cities and urban neighborhoods, too. And with how expensive many cities have become, real economic diversity is largely moving to the suburbs, anyway, while the cities attract the wealthy and the fortunate few who can get subsidized housing.

I think suburban apartment complexes actually serve a really important function in many metros. They provide lower income people a chance to live in areas they would otherwise not be able to. Are they living the suburban dream? No, probably not. But these suburban apartment complexes often are the only way lower income parents can get their kids into good suburban school districts. Even if the apartment dwellers aren't next door neighbors with the wealthier home owners, their kids go to school together, they interact at the rec center/pool/library, etc. Many suburbs and suburban schools have no multi-family, and almost no economic or racial diversity. Is that better?

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by ue

What evidence do you have that people are choosing this kind of environment and housing?

Just what I said. It's rented.

Poor people often lack the choice in where they live, work, and such due to the economic system working against them. For many people, they're living not by choice, but because it is the only affordable option, particularly in expensive metros. What alternatives exist? Old, walkable neighbourhoods that haven't been completely gutted are in high demand and many people end up priced out . . . .

Affordable housing for the working class is good and cities need more of it. But it should not have to be the exclusive domain of lowest quality housing in the lowest quality neighbourhoods, as it tends to be. The kinds of communities that are in the first satellite image also further ingrain the need for a car by their design, which is far more expensive than public transit, walking, or cycling,

This is all nonsense. Luxury housing is nicer than basic housing in many ways. But the kind of housing at issue here is among the cheapest and if it didn't exist more people would be homeless so it's a good thing, not a bad thing in that sense.

Those old walkable neighborhoods you worship are either not as inexpensive as suburban garden style apartments or they contain inferior housing in terms of room, maintenance and amenities. Lots of people would rather live in a one or two bedroom apartment in one of these suburban developments than in an old building downtown where its difficult to park, they may be afraid to go out at night walking and life is just not what they want it to be.

I'm not advocating one lifestyle over another. I live downtown and I like it. But I'm saying that other people would rather live in one of these suburban complexes and that's fine too. I can afford 2 bedrooms/2bathrooms in the middle of town. It would cost a lot less to have them in an inner ring suburb and if my income were lower I might chose that. So it should remain available for people in those circumstances.

[C.]

Originally Posted by edale

I think suburban apartment complexes actually serve a really important function in many metros. They provide lower income people a chance to live in areas they would otherwise not be able to. Are they living the suburban dream? No, probably not. But these suburban apartment complexes often are the only way lower income parents can get their kids into good suburban school districts. Even if the apartment dwellers aren't next door neighbors with the wealthier home owners, their kids go to school together, they interact at the rec center/pool/library, etc. Many suburbs and suburban schools have no multi-family, and almost no economic or racial diversity. Is that better?

Of course they do!! And rental housing is absolutely needed in the suburbs. But do they need to be all congregated in a certain neighborhood, segregated from the rest of the community like in Steely Dan's example, or do opportunities exist for a greater integration.

I've lived on a quiet residential street in the suburbs, but I was not in a single family home. Scattered among the single-family homes were 3-floor, multi-unit buildings that blended well with the character of the neighborhood. I lived there because it was the most affordable option and a 10 minute drive to work. You can probably guess this was a older "street car" suburb. Why did we stop building this way?

I posted in another thread an article about how the Federal government was going to start offering incentives for communities to end exclusionary zoning practices to promote more multi-family housing from being built. From the article, this statement really stood out for me.

Zoning laws were rare in the United States until the Supreme Court in 1917 struck down laws that prevented Black people from buying property in white neighborhoods, prompting local governments to adopt rules that set minimum lot sizes and barred apartment buildings from many neighborhoods.

Under pressure from politically active homeowners, urban areas with the tightest restrictions in place - coastal cities including New York and San Francisco - have increased them further since 2006, according to a University of Pennsylvania survey.

Younger Americans, civil rights groups and employers have pushed some cities in the opposite direction. In recent years, Minneapolis has allowed small apartments to be built in residential areas across the city, and Oregon made a similar change for all urban areas.

[ue]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Of course lowest-income people will be living in the lowest quality housing in the lowest quality communities.

Should it be the opposite, and how?

This is very classist. You seem to suggest that poor people should be living in poor housing. That's essentially saying that living in bad situations is what they deserve. If American society was not so polarized in the socioeconomic sense, then poor people would not be living in the poorest quality housing.

Many societies, both past and present, have done a far better job at ensuring housing is accessible, affordable, and of good quality for many people, regardless of their income. There's a lot of ways this could be done. Divest from military, policing, and/or create a wealth tax (that wealth is created purely by exploiting the working class anyway, not from any real work) and use that to fund public housing or affordable housing initiatives (eg rent control). Create anti-gentrification policies and stop the gross commodification of housing that is being seen in New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Toronto.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by C.

Of course they do!! And rental housing is absolutely needed in the suburbs. But do they need to be all congregated in a certain neighborhood, segregated from the rest of the community like in Steely Dan's example, or do opportunities exist for a greater integration.

exactly!

so many of these cordoned-off suburban apartment complexes are now like warehouses for the suburban poor. keep them out of sight and out of mind; "contain the virus".

like someone said earlier in the thread, they're an outgrowth of the same exact thinking that brought us the notorious public housing projects of last century.

it's quite unfortunate. our society could have done so much better at providing better affordable multi-family housing options out in the burbs.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Yeah but they probably have some nice, tree-derived name like The Willows or The Oaks.

whoops, i missed this response earlier.

i see that your google maps finding skills are top notch

[JManc]

There's an area in Houston (Gulfton) which is full of 60's and 70's era cracker box apartments which were hot spots back in the day for young singles/ professionals but largely have turned into 'warehouses for the suburban poor' as Steely aptly put it. This area happens to be the densest part of town but almost exclusively ageing low quality apartment complexes with no chance of redevelopment or investment anytime soon.

[Steely Dan]

^ wow, that old TV commercial is all kinds of bad awesome.

i wonder how long that myth actually existed for, or if it even ever existed at all.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Just what I said. It's rented.

What? You're saying that because there is demand for these units to be rented (or bought, sometimes they're condos) then people are choosing to live in them, as this is evidence of their preferred lifestyle? This is nonsense, and I explained why in the rest of my post.

The free market that exists (including for housing) is not actually a system that produces freedom for anyone who hasn't exploited the system to immense advantage (those that could afford a home in Alamo Square and make a lot of money in Cupertino). Again, if this is the only viable housing that's affordable in many metro areas, as others have corroborated, then what choice is there? Just because the housing is being rented and occupied doesn't mean this is what the residents prefer. It simply suggests no better alternative exists.

This is all nonsense. Luxury housing is nicer than basic housing in many ways. But the kind of housing at issue here is among the cheapest and if it didn't exist more people would be homeless so it's a good thing, not a bad thing in that sense.

Cheaply-built housing that is not built to last will have immense issues over its lifespan in the form of repairs and maintenance in ways that well-built housing will not. While the initial cost of the housing may be cheaper, it quickly rises over a 25 year span.

I'm not suggesting that housing be built with gold tiles or whatever. But housing has been built in many places that have lasted well without being expensive. And again, there is a problem with the ways in which housing has been commodified in recent decades for the benefit of wealthy folks, such that that enormous wealth can and should be redistributed so that more options are available.

Those old walkable neighborhoods you worship are either not as inexpensive as suburban garden style apartments or they contain inferior housing in terms of room, maintenance and amenities.

Are you aware of what the suburbs I listed look like? They're very pleasant, and often quite wealthy, so I doubt the housing is actually inferior compared to cheap EIFS shit built in exurbia.

But yes, they are not as affordable, which was again my point. There shouldn't be, in terms of more walkable suburbia, only the choice between expensive, highly-desirable areas and bombed out post-industrial areas. And the fact that at one point in the very cities we're talking about this wasn't the case speaks to how it can happen again. All that is stopping new neighbourhoods in suburbia from resembling these areas is inertia, ingrained car culture, and zoning regulations.

The point is that the system is inherently unjust. Wealthy people can choose to live in a McMansion, in a leafy old walkable suburb like Evanston, in a loft, in a luxury condo in Lakeshore East, a townhouse, really anything. For them, choice is abundant. For working class folks, this choice does not exist, and therefore you have people living in these sorts of suburban multifamily developments who otherwise wouldn't if they had the choice not to.

Lots of people would rather live in a one or two bedroom apartment in one of these suburban developments than in an old building downtown where its difficult to park, they may be afraid to go out at night walking and life is just not what they want it to be.

Where in my post was I talking about downtown living? Seriously. It is extremely annoying repeatedly having people just not read what I say and having to repeat my argument because you're chasing straw men. My argument was not saying the options are post-war suburbs or downtown. I agree that downtowns are not for everyone. My argument was for OTHER kinds of suburbia which used to be built with regularity for a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. My argument is that the current system doesn't allow the availability for other, perhaps better (even if we look objectively in an environmental sense) forms of suburbia to be accessible to working class people who end up in these types of developments.

Re: difficult to park - I think two things are important to note. One is that many of these older suburban areas are still alright to use a car in. They're more pedestrian oriented, sure, but on-street parking exists and they're never as busy as downtown. The other is yet another thing I spoke to in my other post which has to do with how the necessity of the car has been ingrained in American society. The US has divested for so long from transit, walking, and cycling as well as the kinds of environments that are conducive to such methods of transportation that the car is the only reasonable way of getting around in most of the country. So of course with that mindset ingrained people are going to eschew areas where parking may be an issue because they're used to driving everywhere and haven't had the ability to live anywhere where it isn't necessary (especially as those places increasingly price out poor people). It seems as though you are ignoring the social indoctrination of car culture and the influence it has on people as well as the prioritization of car-based environments for decades leaving little other option.

I'm not advocating one lifestyle over another. I live downtown and I like it. But I'm saying that other people would rather live in one of these suburban complexes and that's fine too.

Again, you never actually gave any evidence of this, you just said it as if that alone makes it fact. While I'm sure if you asked residents, there are some who actually "chose" that kind of housing, many (including in this very thread) have described them as the "only affordable option" and overall kind of shit to live in.

I can afford 2 bedrooms/2bathrooms in the middle of town. It would cost a lot less to have them in an inner ring suburb and if my income were lower I might chose that. So it should remain available for people in those circumstances.

Basically, you're a wealthy person who is ignorant of these sorts of issues working class people deal with, cool.

See also, this:

Originally Posted by C.

Of course they do!! And rental housing is absolutely needed in the suburbs. But do they need to be all congregated in a certain neighborhood, segregated from the rest of the community like in Steely Dan's example, or do opportunities exist for a greater integration.

[edale]

So it's a land use complaint. Suburban areas are infamous for their poor land use patterns and single-use zoning. Single-family over here, multi-family over there, commercial over here, etc. How is this surprising?

I agree that it's better to integrate different housing typologies within neighborhoods. I live in an apartment in a neighborhood that contains a solid mix of large apartment buildings, small (4-6 unit) apartment buildings, duplexes, bungalow courts, and single-family homes. It all works together very well. But it's an older neighborhood, and not some far flung suburb full of cul-de-sacs and big box retail.

One of the hallmarks of American suburbs is that everything is separated. Apartment complexes, which were not always meant for the poor when they were built, are not special in this regard, nor are they indicative of a desire to "keep the poors contained" as has been claimed. A lot of the suburban apartment complexes that now are home to lower income people, used to be desirable, modern developments! They're cordoned off from the single family, because different uses and even different intensities of the same use, are separated in suburbs.

Also, the 3-6 unit, small scale apartment buildings we all love don't really get built many places these days. Not in cities or in suburbs, and it's not all because zoning prohibits them. It no longer makes economic sense, from many developers POV, to construct such buildings. They much prefer to aggregate property and build larger buildings. I think this is part of the equation, too. We just don't build the 'missing middle' housing like we used to, even in cities where such structures have been legalized citywide. Development is too expensive to invest in such product, unless it's of the luxury variety.