Opposition to High Density Development

I&#x27;m opposed to high density housing as well, for myself, personally. That&#x27;s why I don&#x27;t live in a city.<p>But being opposed to it <i>generally</i>, in a city no less, is a bit ridiculous. Either you want&#x2F;need to live in a place with a ton of people or you don&#x27;t. If you don&#x27;t like traffic and neighbors upstairs don&#x27;t live in a city. If you don&#x27;t like long drives to the grocery store and needing to rely on a car to get around and on interpersonal business instead of professional employment, live in a city. But this middle of the road, cake and eat it too, cities designed for cars, urban sprawl by ordinance just makes things suck for everyone involved, it&#x27;s the worst of both worlds.

I don&#x27;t think either side of the argument is necessarily wrong. Both high and low density housing bring different pros and cons as well as different elements that the residents of either one may not appreciate of the other.<p>The question of whether one form of housing development is better than the other is a red herring.<p>What we must ask is why we&#x27;ve organized cities the way we have, whether we can change how they are organized, and if we even should. That&#x27;s because, let&#x27;s face it, there&#x27;s a form of NIMBY for both. Create more high density housing and the people with McMansions complain. Build some McMansions and the high density people cry &quot;gentrification!&quot; None of these people are going away, and neither one necessarily needs to lose their way of life.<p>The way I see it, there&#x27;s too much a dichotomy between the city-life and the suburban or rural life. We might find ways to for them to better work together<p>For instance, although high density housing can be a good thing for many, from a structural standpoint they mostly make sense in dense urban cities and the outskirts of said cities. But why have dense urban cities in the 2020&#x27;s? Why can&#x27;t suburbs actually live up to the <i>urb</i> part?<p>Maybe we can actually use a lot of the vacant land we still have in America to create <i>systems</i> of small cities that can satisfy the needs of the many as well as the few? I don&#x27;t think that there would be as much an opposition to high density development if it could be planned in such a way not to step on the toes of those who don&#x27;t want to be around high density housing while still having a place for it. It would be better for policing and a sense of community.<p>Better yet, create networks of paths for bikes and tiny vehicles between said small cities. I mean actual bike paths, not the fake ones we paint on existing roads designed for cars. Economic opportunities could be created along those paths and make it simpler for towns to have their own cultures yet be involved with each other and easy to travel between without the hell of vehicle traffic.<p>I guess my thought is rather vague, but I still feel that we always end up asking the wrong questions.

For those of us not affiliated with a University, is there a way to read the article without paying $37.50?<p>Anecdotally, there&#x27;s a lot of mythology in America about the supremacy of single family exclusive neighborhoods that&#x27;s contradicted by actual numbers (mentioned in the abstract). There&#x27;s also people&#x27;s preference for the thing they know and at this point we have two generations that have grown up in single family exclusive neighborhoods.<p>It&#x27;s really difficult to soften this kind of opposition.

Morally, I&#x27;m very pro-high density housing. Just like I&#x27;m pro-public transit. But in reality, my expressed preference is a single-family house with a yard and the convenience a car brings. I&#x27;m not sure how to square these things.

Density is great if you can&#x27;t afford a big house + a car.<p>Back in my younger days I had a 600$ apartment in LA right next to the train. Moderately safe area, and I didn&#x27;t need a car. 10$ an hour was livable. Hell it was downright nice. 3$ bottles of Soju and 4$ Tortas. LA used to be a great place.<p>Now that same apartment is 1300$. In most of LA, really America, you need a car. With a car you&#x27;re out like 500 to 800$ a month on the low end.<p>Before you know it even making good money your very very poor. If I get fired I don&#x27;t need to keep making my car payment, having a car loan puts you in a bad spot.

Because I know half the people won&#x27;t read it if it takes the extra click, here&#x27;s the abstract:<p>&gt; Virtually every city in the United States bans multifamily homes in at least some neighborhoods, and in many cities most residential land is restricted to single family homes. This is the case even though many metropolitan areas are facing skyrocketing housing costs and increased environmental degradation that could be alleviated by denser housing supply. Some scholars have argued that an unrepresentative set of vocal development opponents are the culprits behind this collective action failure. Yet, recent work suggests that opposition to density may be widespread. In this research note, I use a conjoint survey experiment to provide evidence that preferences for single-family development are ubiquitous. Across every demographic subgroup analyzed, respondents preferred single-family home developments by a wide margin. Relative to single family homes, apartments are viewed as decreasing property values, increasing crime rates, lowering school quality, increasing traffic, and decreasing desirability.<p>My personal values make &quot;decreasing desirability&quot; is the biggest factor, but I can&#x27;t read the article to see if I&#x27;m representative.

Generally the presence of other people devalues places. You want just enough of the right number of people and that’s it.

Here we have the eternal struggle between people who know what they do and do not want, and other people who want to know <i>better</i> for the first group.<p>People who want to live in a single-family residence, they hate the noise from inconsiderate neighbors, and weird smells (cooking or otherwise). They hate fighting for parking. Technically, it is possible to construct multi-family buildings with good noise insulation and decent venting. In reality, people who have had a lot of miserable experiences in apartment buildings and dorms know that this will emphatically <i>not happen</i>. It could! It really could! But it won&#x27;t.<p>It would be great if we were angels, but we are not. The people who construct apartment buildings cut so many corners, and we have ongoing evidence of issues with maintaining those buildings, which sometimes do things like collapse. Some people are not a lot of fun to live near, and people who recognize this want to put them at arm&#x27;s length.

&gt; Relative to single family homes, apartments are viewed as decreasing property values, increasing crime rates, lowering school quality, increasing traffic, and decreasing desirability.<p>The problem is most cities only allow two kinds of development: Low density or high density. We&#x27;re missing the middle!<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Missing_middle_housing" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Missing_middle_housing</a><p>I&#x27;ve really enjoyed these two YouTube channels on the subject.<p>&quot;Oh the Urbanity&quot; has a great video on Montreal&#x27;s &quot;missing middle&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=mYCAVmKzX10" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=mYCAVmKzX10</a><p>And &quot;Not Just Bikes&quot; discusses a &quot;missing middle&quot; neighborhood in Toronto: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0</a>

Here&#x27;s the free version of the article from the author&#x27;s webpage - (hopefully the same as sagepub)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;faculty.ucmerced.edu&#x2F;jtrounstine&#x2F;Skittles_UAR_ALL.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;faculty.ucmerced.edu&#x2F;jtrounstine&#x2F;Skittles_UAR_ALL.pd...</a>

Since only the abstract is available to the general public, I can only speculate on what the article actually says.<p>That said, I&#x27;ve long thought that the opposition to high density development is partly driven by the complete asynchrony between private development and public infrastructure. I live in a rural area adjacent to a medium-size metropolitan area (pop ~400K). With alarming frequency, private entities put up high-rise residential structures; but beyond cursory project review and maybe an access lane or two our municipal governments do nothing with foresight. There is no consideration given to the system-wide impact of these dense developments.

&gt; I use a conjoint survey experiment to provide evidence that preferences for single-family development are ubiquitous. Across every demographic subgroup analyzed, respondents preferred single-family home developments by a wide margin.<p>One thing is verbal preference in questionnaire, a different thing is revealed preference in the market, where realistic economic constraints are applied (equi-affordable high density apartments would be in much more desirable locations than single-family homes, in the same location high-density apartments would be much cheaper).

Why <i>wouldn&#x27;t</i> you oppose density? The issue is a prisoner&#x27;s dilemma. Only a top-down heavy handed resolution can actually, well, resolve this problem.<p>More housing should certainly be built, but the YIMBY crowd ignores the inherent dis-incentives that one has towards more housing near them. People bring in the morality of more&#x2F;cheap housing, which is fair enough, but isn&#x27;t sufficient to get people to change their behavior.

Conservative political interests went nuts this elections season breathlessly exclaiming that we need to keep &quot;Keep Mukilteo a Small Town!&quot; as if it wasn&#x27;t already next door to the Boeing Factory Buildings, and a Naval Complex that usually has a Nimitz-class carrier docked.

I can&#x27;t access the article.<p>There is a lot of opposition to high density that is racist and selfish. However, in my experience, a lot of people who are not ignorant or racist are opposed to high density housing because it is built in places that lack infrastructure to support high density housing. I think there would be a lot less opposition if cities were more proactive in improving infrastructure (more parks, mass transit, wider roads, etc.) before high density housing was developed.

In these discussions, people always seem to keep the discussion limited to lifestyle preferences. I prefer to live in a suburb, so we should keep this suburb encased in amber! I prefer to live in an urban area, and obviously it&#x27;s better to decrease rents and per-capita tax burden by increasing density and the supply of housing.<p>There are many enormous negative externalities associated with suburban development: that this kind of forced restrictive zoning is responsible for GDP being _50% lower_ than it otherwise would be (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theregreview.org&#x2F;2018&#x2F;06&#x2F;14&#x2F;somogyi-zoning-codes-gdp&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theregreview.org&#x2F;2018&#x2F;06&#x2F;14&#x2F;somogyi-zoning-codes...</a>), that it vastly increases carbon emissions by necessitating that everyone drive everywhere for every trip, and that it is responsible for the vast majority of the housing affordability and homelessness crisis.<p>The laws of supply and demand are simple, yet people seem to think it can&#x27;t apply to housing.<p>&quot;South Korea says it will boost available housing nationwide with a positive supply “shock” as President Moon Jae-in struggles to tame soaring home prices that are weighing on his approval ratings.&quot; (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2021-02-04&#x2F;south-korea-plans-shock-housing-supply-boost-to-tame-prices" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2021-02-04&#x2F;south-kor...</a>)<p>In Tokyo, a huge megacity with a population of 37 million people, apartment rents can be incredibly cheap (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;IDoTheThinking&#x2F;status&#x2F;1391411804815847432" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;IDoTheThinking&#x2F;status&#x2F;139141180481584743...</a>), $400&#x2F;month in an area only a 20 minute train ride from the center of town. There is not one city in the United States where this is true, because every city makes affordable housing illegal to placate rich NIMBYs.<p>Suburban NIMBY aesthetic and lifestyle preferences that are forced on everyone are causing middle-income and lower-income people to cut back on food, transportation, healthcare, and retirement savings. (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;aaronAcarr&#x2F;status&#x2F;1460393017639153673" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;aaronAcarr&#x2F;status&#x2F;1460393017639153673</a>)<p>If it is wrong to force someone who prefers a suburban area to live in a dense urban area, is it not also wrong to force people who prefer cheaper rents, walkability, and the amenities of urban life to pay 3-6x as much to live in a desolate, anti-social, car-centric suburb?

Sometimes people just want a medium density city.<p>I like my medium density neighbourhood and I like being in a city that has them.<p>If I wanted to live in a tower block I&#x27;d move more centrally or to another city.<p>I also don&#x27;t think that people who don&#x27;t live somewhere, or are temporarily staying somewhere, should have a say in this over established families.

Automobiles are the main factor. Cars made it possible for single family home culture -&gt; cities were designed around cars -&gt; now this culture is the ideal as it is what cities are explicitly designed for.<p>Self driving will be an interesting addition to the mix. We will probably come up with new cultures around that technology.

“Across every demographic subgroup analyzed, respondents preferred single-family home developments by a wide margin.”<p>According to the article, this is a common desire.<p>I have not studied the issue. Are there examples of where switching from low density to high density worked out well?

Is this some new phenomenon? The abstract doesn&#x27;t really provide any shocking or new info. I don&#x27;t see any relation to tech either.

Honestly:<p>- I don&#x27;t want to share my street with anyone, let alone a wall.<p>- I don&#x27;t want increased traffic.<p>- Increased population density also tends to increase crime.<p>- Increased population density has economic benefits that tend to go to companies and developers, not me.<p>- It&#x27;s too hard to get infrastructure built. Roads will never be enough and we&#x27;ll never have good public transit.<p>- Culture is too antagonistic. Public shared spaces with no charge or admission control always get overtaken by inconsiderate, loud people. The less of them, the better.

in the past, local voices did not have power to organize or constrict local development. its a form of social technology that has enabled this around the world over the past 80 years.<p>when people look at urban sprawl they see the culprit as cars, which is maybe true, but the real cause is democracy.

I wonder what opposition there will be to the new laws in California allowing duplexes everywhere?

some people like housing on land, other people like housing that is attached to busy public spaces.<p>both options have their tradeoffs and what makes sense is both individual and subjective.

I have a feeling that if we spread the theory into small and midsize towns that the urban density laws were a conspiracy by the urban elite to keep cities rich and relevant we&#x27;d see them get repealed.