California lawmakers failed to pass high-profile legislation on Wednesday to dramatically increase homebuilding in the state [...]
Senate Bill 50, which would allow construction of mid-rise apartment complexes near transit and job centers and fourplexes in most single-family neighborhoods throughout California, was opposed by state senators who said the measure took too much power away from local governments and failed to sufficiently address low-income housing needs.
— The Los Angeles Times
The bill, which could increase residential densities for properties located near rapid transit, was defeated as nine Los Angeles-area state senators voted against the effort.
The bill is part of California's so far hit-and-miss push to increase housing production in the state as housing un-affordability and homelessness surge. Last year, California passed a slate of measured reforms aimed at addressing the crisis, including effectively ending single-family zoning in the state. Governor Gavin Newsom has stated an aim to build 3.5 million new homes by 2025, a goal that is looking increasingly out of reach.
AIA|LA is holding a meeting this week to discuss whether to announce support for the measure.
btw, the above is not just my opinion, its more or less a known thing
check out the housing starts in major countries around the world (below) and notice the dip in all of them around the 1970's. Thatcher/Reagan area fucked us all up. That is what we are reaping now, not ideology about what architecture should look like.
Notice that most of the cities are still stuck in the 1970's level. No wonder there is a crisis. Only tokyo made an effort to get out of that, and hey guess what, there is not a housing crisis in tokyo. We have a falling population in Japan, but immigration into Tokyo is still positive, and we are managing to keep up.
If you wanna see how they did it check it out here. (Tokyo proves that housing shortages are a political choice) . And if you want to see how this view might be a bit incorrect check here (Has Tokyo reached ‘peak city’? )
The solution to a housing shortage is to build lots of housing.There are ways to do it. None of them involve doing nothing at all.
The way to disrupt zoning is to change zoning laws.
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i don’t think density / real estate advocates have been challenged to make development more family friendly, help the middle class, etc. If you are a working family in California, you want a small bungalow house, not some tiny apartment surrounded by rich single yuppies in downtown Oakland or LA.
Instead of being backed by a credible architecture movement, McUrbanists and their media cronies use real estate bullet points — racism! actually SF and NY are low density! actually the projects are low density! Single family houses are the problem! Really, they just don’t want to compete — they want to force middle class homeowners to be lower class renters who can then be pushed out to make way for rich yuppies. By all means create more light rail and develop parking lots and unused land. But conflict politics is what sells, not design.
Did you attend an accredited institution? Show your work, or this is bullshit - which it is by the way.
"you want a small bungalow house, not some tiny apartment surrounded by rich single yuppies in downtown Oakland or LA."
That these are basically ones only options is exactly the zoning failure this (& other similar) policy aims to correct.
All I'm saying is the country turned away from architecture in the 70s-80s and is reaping the consequences. It's not a zoning failure as much as a failure of ideas. You'd think California of all places could have invented a "killer app" to disrupt zoning. But they didn't. Looking into people's credit card files is much more lucrative. Big Tech and Big Media abandoned the physical environment, and now we are all paying the price.
that is not correct chemex. The country didnt turn away from architecture in the 70's and 80's, it turned away from social housing and housing in general. In recent years commodification, as opposed to the right to, housing, has become extreme. This means NIMBY makes best sense, and is the default position,even for people who are not assholes. Densifying suburban lots is worth doing simply to increase housing on the market, however it is not likely to make housing affordable and is more of a property value windfall for the already wealthy. This model in Californa however is different than simple upzoning, because it is multi-unit (not a granny flat), on a transit corridor, and regional. It creates a financial model that is viable for developers and could have a significant impact regionally. Not going through with it is on the face of it a poor decision. It is hard to say if this argument about low income housing is a real thing or just manipulation to keep low income people away. If the former then it is easy to resolve. Smells like ideology got in the way.
"You'd think California of all places could have invented a "killer app" to disrupt zoning." I would not think that, because without something tangible it's a meaningless thing to think.
The way to disrupt zoning is to change zoning laws.
EXACTLY!
Why is it that this controversy revolves around the already densest cities? This current anti-zoning movement reeks of developer lobbyists and makes Robert Moses look like Jane Jacobs.
The way to disrupt zoning is to get rid of zoning. Let spontaneous order shape cities.
The Density cult has infected everything. There is nothing inherently good about density for the sake of density. If you think pockets of density will counterbalance Autocentric cities like LA...I have a bridge for sale...
We don’t need zones of living density, we need decentralized hubs of production and industry. We need to do the exact opposite of what zoning try’s to do. We need to integrate and overlap functionality between “zones”...
Like I’ve said a million times before, mc urbanism is urbanism without the grit of industry...like suburbs are the small town without the smell of cow shit. Both are sterilized imitations of past forms that got their forms from need driven forces not want driven forces.
So the time around the 70s was a turning point because industry went overseas and cities lost their driving force.
"The way to disrupt zoning is to get rid of zoning. Let spontaneous order shape cities." I mostly agree with this. That said I think you'd find the spontaneous order of things will be much denser than our current (zoning restricted) density.
That’s fine. I don’t think density is inherently bad or good. It just is what it is. If spontaneous order results in density then I’d suspect that there are some driving forces behind it that Require density. Cultural or economic. The forces that shaped Kowloon weren’t “gee wiz, density is hip and sustainable..”
I guess, to clarify, I find the pro-status quo argument to be backwards. The changes aren't mandating density, they're just removing the restriction on density that has made development artificially sparse for decades. As you rightly pointed out, less restrictive zoning is the solution. I think eliminating land-use rules altogether is an over-correction. I think there are a lot of good reasons for zoning. "Neighborhood character" is not one of them.
Agree.
But there can be more overlap of land use...not talking about heavy industrial...but commercial, agricultural, and residential, etc
What we have now are developers commodifying density as a lifestyle and selling it to young wealthy people who grew up in suburbs watching sex in the city, and have a romantic idea of the city. They are selling an idea of urban life, that is as empty as the idea of suburbia being like life in the country. If cities are to survive, in their current form of dense hubs (which maybe they shouldn’t) then the driving forces need to be real, not contrived for marketing schemes.
"mc urbanism is urbanism without the grit of industry...like suburbs are the small town without the smell of cow shit. Both are sterilized imitations of past forms that got their forms from need driven forces not want driven forces."
This is correct. Though getting rid of zoning without some other means of urban design is a mistake. The question should be what better way is there.... something more precise, architectural.
I think the overall thesis of Delirious NY is important to this. An infrastructure that allows for adaptation and spontaneous order within a certain degree of planning....planned chaos of sorts.
^ Approaching my thesis. The younger reviewers loved it, the old guard had a major issue with the idea of 'virality' in urban growth. ...Control freaks.
Ha, That was kind of along the lines of my thesis as well, and same with the old-young reaction.
The million dollar question is how we infuse real drivers of density.
Transit.
Don’t agree with that. Transit is a way to deal with density, not a driver of density. Only economics, maybe culture, and land scarcity actually drives density. Most cities grew around industry or a combination of prosperity and land scarcity.
Transit hubs may attract businesses that thrive from density, like restaurants or retail, but I was always skeptical of the transit oriented developments...I guess it can work in some scenarios...but there has to be more.
Then, you have places like Vegas where people seem to visit for the crowds...the density of retail, casinos, restaurants...but idk if that formula can be anything more than a tourist hub. NYC is sort of following that formula and becoming a tourist hub. Even the shawarma is Vegas esqe.
If you build it they will come.
.
btw, the above is not just my opinion, its more or less a known thing
check out the housing starts in major countries around the world (below) and notice the dip in all of them around the 1970's. Thatcher/Reagan area fucked us all up. That is what we are reaping now, not ideology about what architecture should look like.
Notice that most of the cities are still stuck in the 1970's level. No wonder there is a crisis. Only tokyo made an effort to get out of that, and hey guess what, there is not a housing crisis in tokyo. We have a falling population in Japan, but immigration into Tokyo is still positive, and we are managing to keep up.
If you wanna see how they did it check it out here. (Tokyo proves that housing shortages are a political choice) . And if you want to see how this view might be a bit incorrect check here (Has Tokyo reached ‘peak city’? )
The solution to a housing shortage is to build lots of housing.There are ways to do it. None of them involve doing nothing at all.
there’s nothing I hate more than data or science applied to cities — science is an ex post facto abstraction, only reliable in experiments where all variables are the same. What has more variables than a city? Comparing rate of construction in a city is the most absurd nonsense — architecture is supposed to give us common sense, looking at an existing site context and then thinking of the best solution. That’s why most “real” architects are both pro-growth and preservationist. I would love to replace zoning with a robust design culture that features development, infrastructure and preservation but how is that giving to happen when design only seems to be valued when it comes to preservation?
There's a lot words in what you said, but none of makes sense.
@ Chemex, when data refutes ideology it is indeed a challenge to engage with it without admitting to biases, as is clear from your response. Sure, there are issues with data driven design, and the complications are well...complicated. Just as you say. That doesnt mean it makes any sense to simply have an opinion and assert that reality is not useful, especially since your stance is supposedly based on history. 50 years of data is not deniable if you actually think context is important. The fact you flip it aside is not evidence of anything other than your ideology, certainly not your correctness. Why not respond with a better analysis or better information? The solution to a housing crisis is to build housing. That's it. It is pure common sense, to use your term. What it looks like is another story. Feel free to get ideological about that if you like. I will disagree with you most likely, but if you actually want to talk about housing then you will need to engage with the actual problem, not your issues with style and contemporary culture. btw, what is a real architect? A license, ownership of a practice? Or is it about style?
Will! All the words! It makes sense. Thoughtful and cogent.
This chart you provided is the perfect example of what I’m taking about: Data gerrymandering. Besides having no idea where it comes from, I’ll assume the data is correct. However we can see it is already out of date, as we know Paris has drastically upped their housing production though social housing programs (without focusing on the red herring of preservation or zoning).
Then you look at the classifications: greater London, New York City, Tokyo prefecture, Paris UU. What do these mean? There is no map to show you differing geographies, cutoffs, etc. does New York City include New Jersey connected metro? Probably not. And then none of these account for existing density.
We need to be more critical about the data we consume. Especially data related to space. It doesn’t really tell you much. When I keep hearing about how low density NY and SF are, it just reeks of dishonesty and Propaganda. By all means find space for more housing, but when people argue for generic concepts like density over design, it means they are part of the problem not solution.
@chemex, i included the link to the source, and you can see your comments have been largely answered in his text. It is a historical chart, not intended for fine grain analysis, merely pointing out that the reason there is a lack of housing is because most countries went through a slow down. What Miles says below is also a really strong comment. There are lots of new housing for the wealthy and not enough for those who are not as lucky. That is also a policy, a decision come to during the fuck the poor politics of the 80's, and that still lingers. But look, Tokyo does not have a housing crisis, partially because the pressure has slacked off, but also because they built. A LOT. They have a very small amount of public housing because there is so much on the market that there is basically a range that fits the entire population, rich and poor. That seems to be the way to get past the crisis. Build a lot and build broadly....Right now I'm working in Toronto and have learned there is a 40% projected increase in population here coming soon. No one is building for that. So rents are expensive. Some units are empty, and that doesnt help, but the real problem is the lack of any serious intention to get ready for the increase. There is a new laneway regulation in play that will help a bit, but the real gains are to be made by carrying out exactly the bill that we are talking about in california. It isnt a cure all. But it is at least a step in a good direction. IF there is a critique and that relates to not building enough for the poor, well, I can understand that. It is entirely possible that if this bill were passed it would relieve enough pressure that the actual problems wont be on the table anymore. And that would be a bad thing. But that doesnt seem to be your point...
There is no shortage of housing. There are more vacant housing units than there are homeless.
There is a shortage of affordable housing. This is the direct result of tax policy that favors investors, speculators, developers, bankers, and rentiers. The politicians blocking SB 30 are doing so on behalf of these interests.
Not that SB 30 would be a panacea or even a fix. As noted in the bill:
The majority of California renters, more than 3,000,000 households, pay more than 30 percent of their income toward rent and nearly one-third, more than 1,500,000 households, pay more than 50 percent of their income toward rent.
The only viable solution to these problems is fiscal policy that eliminates wealth accumulation through ownership rather than work, provides well-paying jobs, and creates a social system based on health care, education, and housing for all. None of this is going to happen without a radical overhaul of the tax system that rewards wealth by punishing everyone else.
There is a shortage of housing in places where people want to live and an abundance of housing in places where people don't want to live.
Again: there is no shortage of housing. There is a shortage of affordable housing because of the economic system.
that is a really important point. I've heard it before but have not seen the numbers that show it or what would make it work.Zoning in north america is a NIMBY thing now, and everyone is scared of losing what they have. Japan is different because property values dont drop in the same way if something weird pops up in the neighborhood. Houses depreciate too, so no flipping going on. Anyone who bought a fixer upper would be putting money into a garbage bin if they actually fixed it up. I think this partially explains why there are flop houses next to multi-millionaire homes all over Tokyo. It also means I can live anywhere in the city and be sure of a good school and a place that fits my economic means. Based on that experience anything that disrupts the isolationist zoning system we have in north america is worth a serious rethink...and again, doing nothing at all doesnt seem to help anyone but the people who are making money off the status quo.
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