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Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

centerforbuilding.org

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Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#161

Post by yonran »

pwb25 wrote: post #122
yonran wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all those "new tech" people hate new tech in their own areas Unfortunately, the recent generation of tech workers have not been represented in local politics. As far as I know, none of the supervisors or mayors in recent memory in San Francisco have worked in technology; they typically come from nonprofits, unions, or just landed gentry. It is not young tech workers who refuse to rezone and amend the building code…

sure, but it's not like their use their money and influence to protest either. where are tim cook or mark zuckerberg saying we need 50 floor houses like in hong kong and singapore in silicon valley? but at the same time, they spend billions on metaverse stuff no one wants

A few wealthy people try to get involved, but there is a strong segment of the electorate and press who are extremely skeptical of wealth (other than their own house). Ron Conway has been portrayed as a boogeyman for many years for his contributions to candidates (https://48hills.org/tag/ron-conway/). Yelp founder Jeremy Stoppelman has been making donations in favor of relaxing zoning. I think it just takes a long time to convince voters that housing supply is an important issue when they are insulated from the housing market due to rent control, benefit from unaffordability because they own real estate, or have read too much misinformation from the “progressive” press who deny that supply affects rent.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#162

Post by seanmcdirmid »

scythe wrote: post #97
sspiff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just everything in Europe is tiny. T i n y. And frankly, it's not that much cheaper over here either. I would argue the other way, as a European, I've been to multiple places Asia and the Middle East and everything is either the same size or smaller than in Europe. I haven't been to Africa or the Americas, but I'd say from my perspective, that things in the US are just extra large.

When I (American) had an apartment in Wuhan, the fridge was not particularly small and our 3-bedroom apartment didn't feel cramped. The beds were hard, but normal size. The bathroom was a little weird — no separation of the shower — but not particularly small. There was a laundry machine but no oven.

Ya, same in Beijing. The bathroom was also wet room, which is probably just an economy. The laundry machine was in the bathroom, my wife had to buy an external oven because she liked baking.

But these were considered luxury by Chinese standards, older housing built before the 90s could get weird, like no hot water and instead you have a tank that needs to activated a half hour before your shower.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#163

Post by mancerayder »

sandworm101 wrote: post #63
sspiff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just everything in Europe is tiny. T i n y. And frankly, it's not that much cheaper over here either. I would argue the other way, as a European, I've been to multiple places Asia and the Middle East and everything is either the same size or smaller than in Europe. I haven't been to Africa or the Americas, but I'd say from my perspective, that things in the US are just extra large.

There are many reasons behind this. It isn't just a fashion for bigger things. I chalk much of it up to differences in work culture. My European friends often talk about pickup up food on the way home from work, dropping in at a store to buy ingredients for dinner. I don't have time to shop like that. My food run is once a week. That means more food in a bigger fridge. They also go out to eat far more than we in Nort…

Where in "Europe" was this? Certainly not in France where a bistro scratches this itch. At any point in the morning or evening you can find some place to sit to serve you food or snacks/coffee/tea/beer. And pâtisseries are made for 'breakfast'.

Europe's a big place. The UK has strict open and closing times for restaurants (don't ask me what they are, only that 12 noon is 12 noon and I couldn't step inside at 11:55a for lunch). And the culture thinks beans and white toast are breakfast. But people definitely eat out for breakfast and even brunch.

But even those examples contradict your friend. I'll give you one generalizations to take home: Europeans like to mess with Americans.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#164

Post by jltsiren »

wolverine876 wrote: post #139
jltsiren wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like you said, fire needs to be considered. Current codes are harming the poor, but it may be less harm than from allowing fire to kill them. The last time there was a discussion on fire codes on HN, I looked up some statistics and reports from Finland. It's a country with an unusually large number of fire deaths per capita for a developed country, because of attitudes and because saunas are common. Almost all fire…

> Almost all fire deaths happened in the unit where the fire started. That could be because of effective fire codes. > I couldn't find any reports of fires where a second stairwell accessible from the same corridor would have prevented deaths. Meaning, you couldn't find anything either way, or in what you found, the second stairwell wouldn't have helped?

Finland is small enough that all fire deaths (50-100 / year) make it into national news. There are very few deaths reported outside the unit where the fire started. When reading reports of those outlier cases, I couldn't find a situation where a second stairwell would have helped.

Fire codes are effective and fire fighters arrive quickly enough. If you can get out of your unit, you can get out of the building. Second stairwell requirements address a risk that doesn't really exist in Finland. The real challenge is detecting a fire in your unit quickly enough to get out.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#165

Post by rdedev »

bityard wrote: post #80
tempsy wrote: post #44

America is mostly suburban by choice. Most people do not want to live in an apartment or condo long term if they plan on raising or have a family if they live basically anywhere that isn’t NYC. I find the YIMBY assumption that everyone wishes every city and town was more NYC to just be untrue. People just want detached houses to be cheaper. Most aren’t dreaming about affording a 3 or 4 bed apartment.

City life is fine when you're young or just have a very "busy" lifestyle. I myself didn't care for it much. When you have kids and they start growing up, you eventually long for them to experience a slower pace of life, spend long days exploring a forest that rarely sees children stomping through it, and just generally take in some relative peace and quiet. If you're fortunate and work hard (both are necessary), you…

In the state where I grew up in India there were places that were pretty dense and what you would call urban like (more apartments, buildings less trees etc.) I grew up in a more suburban area compared to that. It was more of single family homes. Comparing the place I grew up with to the suburban areas I see in USA the biggest difference is accessibility. Near my home I could find a place to eat out or buy groceries. It's very hard to find such places in suburban USA and I think a lot of it just comes down to zoning

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#166

Post by korse »

I lived in very reasonably priced 'point access block' apartment in the US Midwest a few years ago. It was relatively new construction, so I'm inclined to believe these aren't as rare in the United States as the author makes them out to be.

We actually moved from that unit into a larger multi-bedroom apartment with attached garage and multiple entrances... and still weren't getting screwed by rent.

Eventually got a house, but still. These things definitely exist here.

Maybe don't live on the coasts?

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#167

Post by bogantech »

varjag wrote: post #32
bouncing wrote: post #2

> In February, I, along with real estate developer Bobby Fijan, went on the Bloomberg podcast Odd Lots to talk about why it’s so hard to find a family-sized apartment in the United States. I argued that North American zoning and building codes work together to drive up the size of multi-bedroom apartments in particular, putting them financially out of reach for many parents raising children. In other words, even if d…

Is this some old building? One egress on above ground floors is many decades since illegal to develop in EU harmonized bulding codes. The only exception I think if there are sprinkler points in the rooms. And TBH you can't really extrapolate your residence in one place to conditions in all of Europe, it is quite different.

> One egress on above ground floors is many decades since illegal to develop in EU harmonized bulding codes.

I was living in an Apartment in Sweden built in 2018 with only a central staircase and no sprinklers and never actually noticed anything else in the few years I lived there

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#168

Post by bouncing »

lxgr wrote: post #140
bouncing wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived/traveled outside of Portugal. It really holds true across the continent. Stuff is just smaller.

With "stuff", are you comparing housing size in general? If so, I think that doesn't make sense given that single-family homes are just much more common in the US than they are in many European countries. Comparing apartment sizes (i.e. excluding single-family homes) makes more sense in a conversation about family-sized apartments. In my very limited experience, US apartments in expensive cities are often tiny as wel…

Well yeah, that's a good example.

I haven't always had a laundry room in apartments I've rented in the US. When I haven't, there's been a shared machine room that all the tenants use with rows of machines. But most of the apartments I've rented in the US have had laundry rooms.

Laundry rooms are, as far as I can tell, something that simply doesn't exist this side of the Atlantic. They put clothes washers in the kitchen and even in humid Porto, vented tumble dryers are pretty uncommon.

Granted, New York, Boston, and San Francisco are different. But if you're in Denver, or Austin, or Dallas, etc, you can expect an apartment with far more storage than similarly sized European cities.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#169

Post by jorvi »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #160
jorvi wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things in America are just very large. Maybe harsh, but North Americans just love to consume consume consume planetary consequences be damned. Per capita CO2 emissions (aka carbon footprint): - 15.5 Canada (?!) - 14.5 USA - 8.5: China - 3.3: Vietnam - 15.5 Australia - 3.7: Sweden - 8.2: Germany - 7.8: Netherlands - 5.5: Italy - 1.9: Morocco - 6.8: South Africa - 3.6: Mexico - 2.2: Brazil If you live at nearly x2 th…

You missed Australia, at 15.25. Probably because they have all those coal reserves, and like houses as big as Americans.

Edited in, thanks!

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#170

Post by tmnvix »

jorvi wrote: post #86
Aurornis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would argue the other way, as a European, I've been to multiple places Asia and the Middle East and everything is either the same size or smaller than in Europe. The parent commenter moved from America to Europe, so the size difference is obvious. I agree that many parts of Asia have similar size standards. Things in America are just very large.

> Things in America are just very large. Maybe harsh, but North Americans just love to consume consume consume planetary consequences be damned. Per capita CO2 emissions (aka carbon footprint): - 15.5 Canada (?!) - 14.5 USA - 8.5: China - 3.3: Vietnam - 15.5 Australia - 3.7: Sweden - 8.2: Germany - 7.8: Netherlands - 5.5: Italy - 1.9: Morocco - 6.8: South Africa - 3.6: Mexico - 2.2: Brazil If you live at nearly x2 th…

I assume these are tonnes per year. Worth noting that the average vehicle driven the average distance per year in the US accounts for around 4000kg of CO2. Quite the contribution.
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