High-rise housing havens

[iheartthed]

While looking at the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates of housing characteristics for the "missing middle" housing thread I noticed that 41% of housing units in Atlanta are in 20+ unit structures. I've spent some time in Atlanta so I know that there are a lot of residential towers, but I didn't realize that Atlanta is in the top tier of major cities when it comes to share of 20+ unit structures of the overall housing distribution.

20+ unit %age of overall housing units, 2024 5-year estimates

49% -- New York City
49% -- Miami
42% -- Washington, D.C.
41% -- Atlanta
39% -- Seattle
34% -- Minneapolis
32% -- Denver
31% -- San Francisco
30% -- Los Angeles
28% -- Boston
28% -- Dallas
27% -- Houston
27% -- Chicago
26% -- Austin
24% -- Portland
21% -- San Diego
19% -- Nashville
19% -- San Jose
18% -- Cincinnati
18% -- Charlotte
18% -- St. Louis
18% -- Cleveland
18% -- Milwaukee
17% -- Pittsburgh
16% -- Phoenix
15% -- Philadelphia
15% -- Baltimore
13% -- San Antonio
13% -- Detroit
13% -- Fort Worth
12% -- Columbus
12% -- Jacksonville
11% -- Buffalo
10% -- Las Vegas
9% -- Indanapolis
9% -- Memphis
9% -- Louisville
8% -- Oklahoma City
7% -- El Paso

20+ unit count, 2024 5-year estimates

1,798,615 -- New York City
465,392 -- Los Angeles
344,544 -- Chicago
281,073 -- Houston
164,135 -- Dallas
153,057 -- Seattle
151,740 -- Washington, D.C.
127,505 -- San Francisco
126,088 -- Austin
121,126 -- San Diego
116,142 -- Denver
112,704 -- Philadelphia
109,314 -- Miami
107,951 -- Atlanta
103,883 -- Phoenix
86,324 -- Boston
82,593 -- San Antonio
72,524 -- Charlotte
72,426 -- Portland
70,258 -- Minneapolis
66,942 -- Nashville
64,455 -- San Jose
52,310 -- Columbus
49,925 -- Jacksonville
47,222 -- Fort Worth
45,615 -- Milwaukee
44,366 -- Baltimore
44,096 -- Detroit
36,414 -- Indanapolis
35,419 -- Cleveland
31,286 -- St. Louis
29,143 -- Cincinnati
27,988 -- Pittsburgh
27,140 -- Las Vegas
25,337 -- Memphis
25,206 -- Louisville
24,919 -- Oklahoma City
18,615 -- El Paso
14,696 -- Buffalo

Atlanta's unit count is not as dramatic when looking at raw 20+ unit count, but it is on the short list of U.S. cities where the count of housing units 20+ unit structures is larger than the count of 1-unit, detached (single family) housing:

Cities with more 20+ units than single-family, detached units

• Atlanta
• Baltimore
• Boston
• Chicago
• Miami
• New York City
• Philadelphia
• San Francisco
• Seattle
• Washington, D.C.

[Crawford]

It could just be garden-style apartment complexes. A lot of Sunbelt cities have lots of multifamily, just not traditional urban-style. Prolly lots of 60's-70's garden apartments in the more working class black neighborhoods and then newer doughnut apartment blocks in the more gentrified neighborhoods.

[mhays]

Very interesting.

So the first number is about five years of construction, and the second is total local inventory?

I'm surprised Seattle was only 39% for the recent construction. The vast majority of that is 4-8-story woodframes however.

Houston's inventory number is particularly impressive.

[Steely Dan]

There's likely a correlation between 20+ unit buildings and high-rises, but don't most worthy cities have shit-tons of 20+ unit mid-rises as well?

Local breakdowns on those proportions might very well vary.

Also, where's Boston?

[Yuri]

Some random Brazilian cities (2022 Census):

BRASIL ---------------- 10,678,213 (14.7%)

NORTE -------------------- 341,977  (6.5%)
NORDESTE --------------- 1,725,762  (9.2%)
CENTRO-OESTE ------------- 741,514 (12.7%)
SUDESTE ---------------- 5,928,075 (18.9%)
SUL -------------------- 1,940,884 (17.2%)

Santos ------------------- 112,752 (67.3%)
Balneário Camboriú -------- 36,222 (62.5%)
São Caetano do Sul -------- 33,075 (53.4%)
Porto Alegre ------------- 276,577 (49.6%)
Vitória ------------------- 62,919 (48.9%)
Florianópolis ------------- 95,460 (43.5%)
Rio de Janeiro ----------- 965,419 (39.6%)
Belo Horizonte ----------- 345,394 (38.8%)
Brasília ----------------- 338,279 (34.2%)
Curitiba ----------------- 229,978 (33.5%)
São Paulo -------------- 1,434,414 (33.3%)
Ribeirão Preto ------------ 83,686 (31.5%)
Campinas ----------------- 130,946 (30.5%)
Recife ------------------- 166,661 (30.4%)
Londrina ------------------ 61,456 (29.3%)
Maringá ------------------- 45,020 (28.8%)
Salvador ----------------- 271,159 (28.3%)
Goiânia ------------------ 152,371 (27.7%)
Fortaleza ---------------- 201,740 (23.5%)
Guarulhos ---------------- 103,850 (23.0%)
Manaus ------------------- 104,681 (16.6%)
Belém --------------------- 69,187 (16.4%)

[Docere]

^ What's this a measure of?

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Docere

^ What's this a measure of?

Number of households that are apartments and its share on the grand total.

[Innsertnamehere]

I assume these are central cities and not metro areas? I struggle to believe cities like Atlanta are really more large apartment complexes than SFH.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Some random Brazilian cities (2022 Census):

BRASIL ---------------- 10,678,213 (14.7%)

NORTE -------------------- 341,977  (6.5%)
NORDESTE --------------- 1,725,762  (9.2%)
CENTRO-OESTE ------------- 741,514 (12.7%)
SUDESTE ---------------- 5,928,075 (18.9%)
SUL -------------------- 1,940,884 (17.2%)

Santos ------------------- 112,752 (67.3%)
Balneário Camboriú -------- 36,222 (62.5%)
São Caetano do Sul -------- 33,075 (53.4%)
Porto Alegre ------------- 276,577 (49.6%)
Vitória ------------------- 62,919 (48.9%)
Florianópolis ------------- 95,460 (43.5%)
Rio de Janeiro ----------- 965,419 (39.6%)
Belo Horizonte ----------- 345,394 (38.8%)
Brasília ----------------- 338,279 (34.2%)
Curitiba ----------------- 229,978 (33.5%)
São Paulo -------------- 1,434,414 (33.3%)
Ribeirão Preto ------------ 83,686 (31.5%)
Campinas ----------------- 130,946 (30.5%)
Recife ------------------- 166,661 (30.4%)
Londrina ------------------ 61,456 (29.3%)
Maringá ------------------- 45,020 (28.8%)
Salvador ----------------- 271,159 (28.3%)
Goiânia ------------------ 152,371 (27.7%)
Fortaleza ---------------- 201,740 (23.5%)
Guarulhos ---------------- 103,850 (23.0%)
Manaus ------------------- 104,681 (16.6%)
Belém --------------------- 69,187 (16.4%)

Here 2010 Census numbers:

BRASIL ----------------- 6,206,561 (10.8%)

NORTE -------------------- 171,255  (4.3%)
NORDESTE ----------------- 901,158  (6.0%)
CENTRO-OESTE ------------- 372,179  (8.6%)
SUDESTE ---------------- 3,667,180 (14.6%)
SUL -------------------- 1,094,789 (12.3%)

Santos -------------------- 93,205 (64.5%)
Balneário Camboriú -------- 22,870 (58.2%)
Porto Alegre ------------- 239,055 (47.1%)
Vitória ------------------- 49,109 (45.3%)
São Caetano do Sul -------- 18,991 (37.6%)
Florianópolis ------------- 55,991 (38.0%)
Rio de Janeiro ----------- 811,668 (37.8%)
Belo Horizonte ----------- 252,791 (33.2%)
São Paulo -------------- 1,017,720 (28.5%)
Curitiba ----------------- 154,818 (26.9%)
Recife ------------------- 125,803 (26.7%)
Brasília ----------------- 203,612 (26.3%)
Campinas ------------------ 87,450 (25.1%)
Salvador ----------------- 207,901 (24.2%)
Londrina ------------------ 33,465 (20.3%)
Maringá ------------------- 22,932 (19.6%)
Ribeirão Preto ------------ 37,742 (19.3%)
Goiânia ------------------- 76,916 (18.2%)
Fortaleza ---------------- 127,554 (18.0%)
Guarulhos ----------------- 41,561 (11.5%)
Belém --------------------- 41,366 (11.2%)
Manaus -------------------- 48,453 (10.5%)

Number of apartments in Brazil jumped from 6.2 million to 10.7 million in mere 12 years. Construction boom and as result the number of households with 1 person skyrocketed from 12% to 19% between 2010 and 2022 census.

And Brazilian cities, unlike the general perception on urban forums, are not a sea of highrises.

[Notonfoodstamps]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

There's likely a correlation between 20+ unit buildings and high-rises, but don't most worthy cities have shit-tons of 20+ unit mid-rises as well?

Local breakdowns on those proportions might very well vary.

Depends. Atlanta has ~130 buildings over 300' tall. Which would put it in contention for 5th place (with SF and LA) after NYC, Chicago, Miami, and Houston in the US.

The paradox (like Miami) is that the rest of the city is essentially garden-style apartments or detached SFH's so Atlanta's high-rises massively over represent the housing typology of total city population. DC has roughly the same proportion of +20-unit apartments but has ~40k more units than either Miami or Atlanta in the category of housing.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Also, where's Boston?

Good question. Boston would rank similar to Chicago, SF, and DC.

[Steely Dan]

^ Yeah, it's quite the paradox.

If these #s are correct, Atlanta has almost 3x the proportion of people living in 20+ unit buildings as Philly, and yet it has only 1/3 of the population density of Philly.

Philly's vast armada of "missing middle" FTW!

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mhays

Very interesting.

So the first number is about five years of construction, and the second is total local inventory?

I'm surprised Seattle was only 39% for the recent construction. The vast majority of that is 4-8-story woodframes however.

Houston's inventory number is particularly impressive.

The first number is percentage of 20+ units of the total number of housing units in the municipality. The second is just the raw number of 20+ units.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

There's likely a correlation between 20+ unit buildings and high-rises, but don't most worthy cities have shit-tons of 20+ unit mid-rises as well?

Not necessarily. NYC has just about as many 20+ units as it does all other unit types combined.

• NYC, 20+ units: 1,798,615
• NYC, all other units: 1,879,871

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Local breakdowns on those proportions might very well vary.

Also, where's Boston?

Edited it to add Boston.

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I assume these are central cities and not metro areas? I struggle to believe cities like Atlanta are really more large apartment complexes than SFH.

This is only central cities.

Originally Posted by Notonfoodstamps

The paradox (like Miami) is that the rest of the city is essentially garden-style apartments or detached SFH's so Atlanta's high-rises massively over represent the housing typology of total city population. DC has roughly the same proportion of +20-unit apartments but has ~50k more people living in them than either Miami or Atlanta.

Yeah, the distribution of housing structure types in Atlanta is very, very similar to Miami:

• 1-unit, detached: 36% (Atlanta) / 22% (Miami)
• 1-unit, attached: 6% / 9%
• 2-units: 2% / 3%
• 3 - 4 units: 4% / 4%
• 5 - 9 units: 5% / 6%
• 10 - 19 units: 6% / 6%
• 20+ units: 41% / 49%

[Notonfoodstamps]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ Yeah, it's quite the paradox.

If these #s are correct, Atlanta has almost 3x the proportion of people living in 20+ unit buildings as Philly, and yet it has only 1/3 of the population density of Philly.

Philly's vast armada of "missing middle" FTW!

Philly is similar to Baltimore regarding proportional multi-family living.

Both cities have so many rowhomes and (and continue to build them in mass) that any proportional multi-family housing typology change is historically offset. They'll balloon in raw unit amount but not in % share assuming their respective residential markets remain steady.

[MonkeyRonin]

The Canadian census captures apartment building size a bit differently, with the categories being apartments in buildings with less than 5 stories and those with more than 5 stories. Unfortunately there is no specific "high-rise" category, though, residential buildings in the 5-10 storey range generally aren't too common, so the 5+ storey building category makes a fairly decent proxy for high-rise.

Select Canadian municipalities by the percentage of housing units in 5+ storey buildings as of the 2021 census:

Toronto: 46.7%
New Westminster, BC: 34.7%
Vancouver: 31.1%
Burnaby, BC: 29.4%
Mississauga, ON: 27.3%
Victoria: 22.3%
Ottawa: 18.9%
Hamilton: 16.4%
Montreal: 16.0%
Halifax: 14.9%
Winnipeg: 13.7%
Quebec City: 8.8%
Calgary: 8.1%
Edmonton: 7.4%

Some of these stats are skewed by varying municipality size, but Ontario & BC are the pretty clear champions of high-rise living. Quebec's cities would dominate when it comes to low-rise apartment living however.

[mhays]

Thanks for the clarification. That does make Seattle's number more understandable.

It would be interesting to see the number of 20+ units in metros vs. central cities too. Some metros will have a ton outside their central cities.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Some random Brazilian cities (2022 Census):

BRASIL ---------------- 10,678,213 (14.7%)

NORTE -------------------- 341,977  (6.5%)
NORDESTE --------------- 1,725,762  (9.2%)
CENTRO-OESTE ------------- 741,514 (12.7%)
SUDESTE ---------------- 5,928,075 (18.9%)
SUL -------------------- 1,940,884 (17.2%)

Santos ------------------- 112,752 (67.3%)
Balneário Camboriú -------- 36,222 (62.5%)
São Caetano do Sul -------- 33,075 (53.4%)
Porto Alegre ------------- 276,577 (49.6%)
Vitória ------------------- 62,919 (48.9%)
Florianópolis ------------- 95,460 (43.5%)
Rio de Janeiro ----------- 965,419 (39.6%)
Belo Horizonte ----------- 345,394 (38.8%)
Brasília ----------------- 338,279 (34.2%)
Curitiba ----------------- 229,978 (33.5%)
São Paulo -------------- 1,434,414 (33.3%)
Ribeirão Preto ------------ 83,686 (31.5%)
Campinas ----------------- 130,946 (30.5%)
Recife ------------------- 166,661 (30.4%)
Londrina ------------------ 61,456 (29.3%)
Maringá ------------------- 45,020 (28.8%)
Salvador ----------------- 271,159 (28.3%)
Goiânia ------------------ 152,371 (27.7%)
Fortaleza ---------------- 201,740 (23.5%)
Guarulhos ---------------- 103,850 (23.0%)
Manaus ------------------- 104,681 (16.6%)
Belém --------------------- 69,187 (16.4%)

It seems Brazilian Stats Office (IBGE) has a broader definition for "apartment" than the American or Canadian:

Located in a building with one or more floors and more than one dwelling unit, served by common areas (entrance hall, stairways, corridors, concierge/reception, or other shared facilities). A dwelling located in a two-story or taller building in which the other units are non-residential, as well as a dwelling located in a building with two or more floors and separate entrances to each floor, is also considered an apartment (IBGE, 2010)

[JManc]

The term "high rise" is doing some heavy lifting for Houston MFH because a tiny % actually live in high rises with the vast majority live in 2-3 story cracker box apartment complexes built in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

The term "high rise" is doing some heavy lifting for Houston MFH because a tiny % actually live in high rises with the vast majority live in 2-3 story cracker box apartment complexes built in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

But "2-3 story cracker box apartment complexes built in the 60's, 70's and 80's" is not alliterative, is it?

Kidding aside, yes, there are some cases where low rise structures will have 20+ units but that seems outlier-ish? Either way, I don't think the census tracks floor count.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Kidding aside, yes, there are some cases where low rise structures will have 20+ units but that seems outlier-ish? .

Not in Chicago.

Many northside arterials out in the neighborhoods (where "highrise" is a 4 letter word) are getting littered with 20+ unit buildings 6 floors or less.

[MonkeyRonin]

Yeah, not hard to get 20+ units in a low-rise building. Around here any old 3-storey double lot apartment building will generally have somewhere north of 20 units, eg. like these pretty typical ones from the 60s & 70s: https://maps.app.goo.gl/84kv678fEnRS841V7?g_st=ac

The last building I lived in had 10 units and it was a 2.5-storey building on a single standard lot. Or a while before that, this 3.5-storey, 32 unit building: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1TVekiTyDieiBNuRA?g_st=ac. Unless it's a really small lot and/or huge apartments, you'd need much more than 20 units to get to a high-rise.