Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods
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Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods
#2I live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up. Take a stroll down one of our streets https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3130357,-71.1188873,3a,75y,1...
It is dense, walkable, and extremely beautiful. There is no reason every neighborhood with duplexes has to look like cookie cutter sprawl that makes people unhappy.
Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods
#3Particularly in the era of remote work, I anticipate LA moving towards a denser downtown and West Side and relying on expanded suburbs in the inland empire and OC to provide the classic single family housing neighborhoods for those who want them.
Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods
#4I live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up. Take a stroll down one of our streets https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3130357,-71.1188873,3a,75y,1... It is dense, walkable, and extremely beautiful. There is no reason every neighborhood with duplexes has to look like cookie cutter sprawl tha…
Seconded. I lived in JP for several years and it was easily my favorite of the Boston neighborhoods to live in. Absolutely gorgeous.
I lived in a 6 bed unit on the top level of a 3-story duplex that had 4 people living on the ground floor. It was a massive house that allowed for ten non-related people to live together on a street filled with similar houses, lined with massive oak trees and a five minute walk from a lovely pond. Gorgeous neighborhood.
Edit: I’ll add that I never experienced any negative effects in JP that I’d associate with such dense living. Unlike the more rowdy student oriented neighborhoods like Allston that were far more rough and messy.
Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods
#5As soon as you look at the zoning of LA, the housing problem there becomes clear as day, even for someone who doesn't visit very often.
I don't know what you would call this system but LA's problem is that the folks that have the power to fix housing have zero interest in doing because it would hurt their self interest. Housing is only a "problem" if you haven't bought a house yet, once you purchase a house, all the issues with housing there all of a sudden become benefits.
This is a small step in the right direction but California has really dug themselves into a hole here. California needs whole apartment blocks, not just duplexes, but apartments is something that is likely to never happen because of the above issue where no one will vote against their self interest. One could say the State should step in but that would be un-democratic. In fact this whole situation is weirdly democratic but un-democratic. Un-democratic in the sense that it casts out folks that don't live there, but democratic in the sense that the voices of those who own homes are clearly heard.
You guys and gals have an interesting problem on your hands.
Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods
#6Duplexes, literally the least they can do.
Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods
#7Montréaler here; I live in a neighbourhood which is uniquely composed of plexes - 3 to 8 units per "plex", with the typical number being 3, thus the term "triplex".
Honestly, it's the ideal density IMHO. I get the convenience factors of urban density, but without (most) of the downsides of a high-rise condominium building.
Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods
#8I live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up. Take a stroll down one of our streets https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3130357,-71.1188873,3a,75y,1... It is dense, walkable, and extremely beautiful. There is no reason every neighborhood with duplexes has to look like cookie cutter sprawl tha…
Boston was incorporated two hundred years before Los Angeles. Of course it is going to have more beautiful, old houses. Of course it is going to have more walkable neighborhoods.
But what I'm more interested in is this:
> Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up.
SFH are already 1 million and up in LA, really in SD, LA, SF, Seattle, and Vancouver. It will be interesting to see what happens to SFH values if they become scarcer. It seems like it might have the opposite effect that the NIMBYs generally fear, and make them even _more_ wealthy.
Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods
#9Obviously I support these kind of movements - the housing crisis is no joke. But every time I see an article about multifamily homes, I think: ok, but we really need is are hundreds of tall high rises with 500+ units, like in New York or Boston, each of which uses land much more efficiently than LA (2x more residents per square mile).
Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods
#10I live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up. Take a stroll down one of our streets https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3130357,-71.1188873,3a,75y,1... It is dense, walkable, and extremely beautiful. There is no reason every neighborhood with duplexes has to look like cookie cutter sprawl tha…
Have you ever had your mail sent to Jamaica?