NEWSFLASH! Detached SFH's take up a lot of space

[Steely Dan]

well, yeah, we already knew that.

but i recently came across some numbers for my middle-urbanism neighborhood of Lincoln Square that put a point on it.

detached SFH's only make 15.4% of the housing units in my neighborhood. a further 2.1% are SFH attached; the other 82.5% of the housing units in my hood are MFH.

but check this out:

disregarding the giant 0.5 sq. mile cemetery attached to lincoln square, it has a toal of 1,333 acres that break down like this:

single family housing: 234 acres (17.5%)
multi-family housing: 343 acres (25.7%)
mixed use: 36 acres (2.7%)
transportation (streets): 456 acres (34.2%)
other (parks, schools, industry): 264 acres (19.8%)


so single family homes only make up 17.5% of the units, but use up nearly 40% of the residential/mixed-use land.

meanwhile, multi-family homes make-up 82.5% of units, but only take up roughly 60% of the residential/mixed-use land.

that's why if you spent an afternoon walking around the residential side streets of my neighborhood, you might walk away with the impression of "wow, there are A LOT more SFH's here than i would have guessed for a neighborhood of 20,000 ppsm", but the reality is that they just take up an inordinate amount of space; they are very much in the extreme minority in terms of total units.

[mhays]

In my area I like to reference the Ballard neighborhood. It has an apartment area, townhouse areas, and SFR areas.

A block (a large one) might have 28 houses. Townhouses can up that to 84-112 (typically 3-4 per house lot). Woodframe apartments can get that to 500 units.

This shows the three in order (go north of 65th for pure SFRs): https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6632...oASAFQAw%3D%3D

[Doady]

I think we should build a city for everyone, and that means a diverse mix of housing types.

I also think detached houses are not inherently bad. The detached houses in Lincoln Square are not exactly the same as the detached houses in Alpharetta.

Since high-rises take up so little space, it also makes sense to place them strategically. You don't want high-rises on the side street, you want them on the main street, as close to the transit stop as possible, so it makes sense to have single family houses on the side street.

[xzmattzx]

What's the average lot size for these SFHs? What's the average lot size for the MFHs?

[Steely Dan]

^ the standard residential lots size in most of Lincoln Square is 30'x125'.

[Nouvellecosse]

This is a topic that's often frustrating to discuss. It's extremely obvious that detached housing takes up a disproportionate amount of land compared to other housing types, particularly fully attached. Yet anytime there are discussions about this, there's inevitably some people who just say, "Oh well it's all just a matter of personal choice. Some people prefer one type of housing, others prefer something different. It's all just down to taste." And yes, taste is a consideration, but it affects a lot of other things as well. There are significant practical, utilitarian considerations that apply and that can't just be ignored. The amount of land a housing unit takes up affects the amount of land available for other housing units and land that can be preserved for other species (since less dense cities spread further into nature). Plus, how spread out things are affects travel distances and energy usage along with the cost to provide infrastructure since connecting buildings that are spread apart is much more expensive since things like sewer lines, water mains, sidewalks, utility wires etc. all have to stretch further.

Yet people act like if you acknowledge this basic fact and take it into consideration when it comes to the type of planning policies you support, that you're basically advocating for the government to force everyone to live in cages or something. But there's a vast difference between everyone living in tiny micro units and everyone living in detached houses with large yards. It's possible to simply encourage density by reducing or eliminating subsidies on less dense housing and increasing them on another, or by adjusting regulations that act as barriers to creating denser housing.

It's also important to remember that while personal preference is a factor, it's not nearly as simplistic as some people like to make out. Some people seem to think that anyone living in a detached house chose to do so because they prefer that housing style while people living in an apartment chose that because they can't afford a detached house, or at least one they want. But in reality people choose among the actual available options not among the hypothetically ideal options. And they choose based on a wide variety of factors which sometimes have little to do with the unit itself. For instance, someone may choose to live in multifamily because they want to live in a Manhattan where detached houses are rare. So they choose among the available options based on their budget, the neighborhood, proximity to other things, along with the unit. Or someone may choose a detached house because they have children and are having trouble finding an apartment with enough space since so many apartments only have one or two bedrooms with few having more than that. So in order to find adequate housing that's the only real option available. But in both cases their choices are heavily guided by factors other than personal taste.

Cities are a social arrangement where people live close together for mutual benefit. And like any other social arrangement, there are benefits, compromises, and drawbacks with one of the drawbacks being limited space. We need to consider people's individual tastes and circumstances while not forgetting the fact that it's a city and needs to function as such.

[iheartthed]

This is an under analyzed reason for why so many U.S. cities hit a growth wall after WW2

[Docere]

It is deceiving indeed. A lot of people think of Toronto's Annex area as "low density" and SFH-dominated (usually followed with comments about NIMBYism).

[mhays]

Excellent post Nouvellecosse.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Doady

I also think detached houses are not inherently bad. The detached houses in Lincoln Square are not exactly the same as the detached houses in Alpharetta.

I never said detached SFH's are "bad", just that they take up a lot of space, relatively speaking, even narrow lot ones like those found in Lincoln Square.

Detached SFH's in Lincoln Square, average about 13.5 per acre of residential land (3,165/234 acres), so if all of the multi-family land in my hood (343 acres) were to be replaced by narrow lot detached SFH's, the total # housing units in my neighborhood would be reduced to ~7,800, instead of the 20,500 housing units we do have largely due to the area's copious amount of legacy missing middle housing. That's roughly a 60% reduction.



Lincoln Square housing units: 20,484

- detached SFH: 3,165 (15.5%)
- attached SFH: 432 (2.1%)
- 2 - 9 units: 11,361 (55.5%)
- 10 - 19 units: 2,294 (11.2%)
- 20+ units: 3,232 (15.8%)


My neighborhood would be A LOT less functionally urban if it was all just detached SFH's, even narrow lot ones.

[streetscaper]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

This is a topic that's often frustrating to discuss. It's extremely obvious that detached housing takes up a disproportionate amount of land compared to other housing types, particularly fully attached. Yet anytime there are discussions about this, there's inevitably some people who just say, "Oh well it's all just a matter of personal choice. Some people prefer one type of housing, others prefer something different. It's all just down to taste." And yes, taste is a consideration, but it affects a lot of other things as well. There are significant practical, utilitarian considerations that apply and that can't just be ignored. The amount of land a housing unit takes up affects the amount of land available for other housing units and land that can be preserved for other species (since less dense cities spread further into nature). Plus, how spread out things are affects travel distances and energy usage along with the cost to provide infrastructure since connecting buildings that are spread apart is much more expensive since things like sewer lines, water mains, sidewalks, utility wires etc. all have to stretch further.

Yet people act like if you acknowledge this basic fact and take it into consideration when it comes to the type of planning policies you support, that you're basically advocating for the government to force everyone to live in cages or something. But there's a vast difference between everyone living in tiny micro units and everyone living in detached houses with large yards. It's possible to simply encourage density by reducing or eliminating subsidies on less dense housing and increasing them on another, or by adjusting regulations that act as barriers to creating denser housing.

It's also important to remember that while personal preference is a factor, it's not nearly as simplistic as some people like to make out. Some people seem to think that anyone living in a detached house chose to do so because they prefer that housing style while people living in an apartment chose that because they can't afford a detached house, or at least one they want. But in reality people choose among the actual available options not among the hypothetically ideal options. And they choose based on a wide variety of factors which sometimes have little to do with the unit itself. For instance, someone may choose to live in multifamily because they want to live in a Manhattan where detached houses are rare. So they choose among the available options based on their budget, the neighborhood, proximity to other things, along with the unit. Or someone may choose a detached house because they have children and are having trouble finding an apartment with enough space since so many apartments only have one or two bedrooms with few having more than that. So in order to find adequate housing that's the only real option available. But in both cases their choices are heavily guided by factors other than personal taste.

Cities are a social arrangement where people live close together for mutual benefit. And like any other social arrangement, there are benefits, compromises, and drawbacks with one of the drawbacks being limited space. We need to consider people's individual tastes and circumstances while not forgetting the fact that it's a city and needs to function as such.

I agree, this was a great post!