156
Why North America zoning and building codes mean developers can't build nice family friendly "missing middle" housing/apartments (www.youtube.com)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by NarrativeBear@lemmy.world to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

We need to make our cities and towns more family friendly. This is called the "missing middle" in housing, and it's why in north america all we see are either large condo towers or single family homes, which also drives our urban sprawl problems. Which exacerbate out dependency on cars.

Almost all new large towers/buildings in north america prioritize bachelor's units 1 and 2 bedroom units. Trying to find a well priced 3 or 4 bedroom in a "lively" downtown center, close to transit and work, with plenty of schooling in the area is almost impossible. It's also a factor in why cities became so empty during the pandemic, ie. Not to many families living permanently in cities.

Here's a good article that also talks about the same issue with some different apparment layouts, and why developers don't provide adequate family units.

https://www.centerforbuilding.org/blog/we-we-cant-build-family-sized-apartments-in-north-america

This together with zoning requirements in north america is pushing most cities and developers to only cater towards large towers or single family housing.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] ChexMax@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

The problem is that everything is large. Couches, appliances, wardrobes. Microwaves and dishwashers and washer and dryer and then how am I supposed to have a table big enough to do a puzzle on? What if I want to do a puzzle and my partner wants to take out the sewing machine and start a project at the same time?

[-] 7of9@startrek.website 5 points 11 months ago

I had a 45m^2 single bedroom apartment which had a lot of wasted space (like, there was room in the bathroom for another bath, amongst other things), we had a full compliment of white goods, and there was enough space that when my then girlfriend/* could rebuild a motorbike in the living room without having to move any furniture or even park either of the bicycles outside.

/* Now wife, for obvious reasons.

[-] astraeus@programming.dev 3 points 11 months ago

I think there is a cultural tendency for larger spaces, but ultimately these lead to a lot of unused room or arbitrary stuff collecting. People can have a very fulfilling life on much less junk than they assume. The sheer volume of storage units in the US should tell us all we need to know about our lives of excess.

[-] 7of9@startrek.website 1 points 11 months ago

Very well put!

this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
156 points (96.4% liked)

Fuck Cars

9663 readers
61 users here now

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

Rules

1. Be CivilYou may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.

2. No hate speechDon't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.

3. Don't harass peopleDon't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.

4. Stay on topicThis community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.

5. No repostsDo not repost content that has already been posted in this community.

Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.

Posting Guidelines

In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:

Recommended communities:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
ConfidentLonely@lemmy.world
Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world
toaster@slrpnk.net