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Posted Nov 26, 2020, 9:51 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Toronto
Posts: 52,200
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Bring back the rowhouse
https://bypass.theweek.com/articles-...-back-rowhouse
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- Philadelphia is one of the few places where that is even remotely possible for non-rich people. In cities across the country, home prices are skyrocketing even while the rest of the economy is in dire shape. The reason, it seems, is high demand from people who have been saving money thanks to the pandemic, the CARES Act, and low interest rates, combined with very low supply in most markets. — There are many reasons why Philly is still relatively affordable (at least for the moment). But one of them is its turn to rowhouses in decades past, which gives it a large housing stock and moderately high density. Cities across the country, particularly lower-density ones like Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, or the suburbs practically everywhere should bring this style of home back.
- The great thing about rowhouses that is, narrow, long, tall houses built connected to one another, sometimes called townhomes is that they have most of the stuff Americans say they want in a home in a dense, efficient format. Typically they are single-family homes between two and four stories (though they can be built or split into apartments easily enough), with a front and back yard. The yards are small, but big enough for most purposes you don't need a McMansion-style soccer field to have some friends over for drinks and burgers, or let the dog run around, or simply get some fresh air and sunshine. — Instead of construction crews working on separate detached projects one after the other, they can build an entire block all at once. Shared walls means smaller bills for heating and cooling.
- Perhaps most importantly, the high density they enable allows for walkable neighborhoods with lots of shops and workable public transit. South Philly, which is almost entirely rowhouses, has about 24,000 people per square mile which is not as dense as Brooklyn, but more than five times as dense as Phoenix and easily enough to support a subway line. — When the sun is shining the folks on my block like to sit on the porch, chat with each other, smoke some meat, keep an eye on the neighborhood kids playing on the sidewalk, and so on. It feels like a friendly, alive place much more than the silent suburban cul-de-sacs I have visited in my life. And besides, who really wants to mow a three-acre yard all summer? Occasional weeding is more than enough work for me.
- So how come rowhouses are so uncommon these days? They simply are not allowed on most city land, which has zoning rules mandating detached single-family homes. Now, while single-family zoning is being rolled back in some places, most rowhouses are already single-family. Instead they are banned due to rules about how much of the lot a house can take up, how structures must be detatched from each other, mandatory setback from the street, and parking requirements, (which have been recently changed in a few places like Minnesota). — Contrary to libertarian notions about land use rules, the point is not "deregulation" but changing regulations to be more pro-density. Oregon, for instance, recently abolished single-family zoning, but also has a strict urban growth boundary around its cities to prevent damaging sprawl.
- Now, that is not to say that rowhouses will solve all our housing problems. Much of Brooklyn and D.C. are already built out with rowhouses, for instance, and they are still extremely expensive because there is such great demand to live there. — Cities could directly build and own large social housing projects with a spread of units for low-income, medium-income, and market rate tenants, with the market rents used to cover operating costs rather than constant subsidies from tax revenues like traditional public housing. This would work especially well in very high-cost cities like New York and San Francisco, though it should be at least feasible in most places. — Cities ought to aim for roughly stable home values, if not lower ones in expensive cities. But that means that when there is big demand for homes, as there is today, supply must keep up. An easy and quick way to do that is to legalize denser forms of construction like the good old rowhouse.
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