Missing middle housing
Missing middle housing refers to a lack of medium-density housing in the North American context.
The term describes an urban planning phenomenon in Canada, the United States, Australia and more recent developments in industrialized and newly industrializing countries due to zoning regulations favoring social and/or racial separation over shared living arrangements, and the prevalence of cars allowing car-dependent suburban sprawl.
Medium-density housing is characterized by a range of multi-family or clustered housing types that are still compatible in scale and heights with single-family or transitional neighborhoods.
Multi-family housing facilitates walkable neighborhoods and affordable housing, and provides a response to changing demographics.
Instead of focusing on the number of units in a structure, density can also be increased by building types such as duplexes, rowhouses, and courtyard apartments.
The term "missing middle housing" was introduced by architect Daniel Parolek in 2010.
Many forms of what is now described as "missing middle" housing were built before the 1940s, including two-flats in Chicago; rowhouses in Brooklyn, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia; two-family homes or "triple-decker" homes in Boston, Worcester; and bungalow courts in California. Post-WWII, housing in the United States trended significantly toward single-family with zoning making it difficult to build walkable medium-density housing in many areas and, therefore, reducing the supply of the now "missing" middle.
History
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, Canadian and American cities with few exceptions, most notably New York and Chicago which already had many tall buildings, were not dramatically different in form from their European counterparts. They had a relatively small physical footprint compared to their population size, and buildings were largely 3-7 stories tall surrounded by a relatively modest ring of streetcar suburbs.Most city dwellers who were in the lower to middle-income brackets lived in dense urban environments within a practical distance of their workplace.
The less well-off typically lived on either the upper floors of multi-unit residential buildings, as most did not have elevators, or in tenements. Merchants frequently lived in a residential unit above their store. Those who were better-off may have lived in a rowhouse or terrace, and starting toward the end of the 19th century, perhaps in a streetcar suburb still relatively close to the city centre. Overall, the typical arrangement of urban spaces was one where communities were serviced by small-scale owner-operated shops and transport to non-walkable destinations was done by bicycle, bus, streetcar, or train.
Traditionally those in the highest income brackets had typically lived in large houses outside of, but often near to, the city. They travelled to the city originally by horse carriage and later by automobile. For most people, the need to live close to their job significantly limited spatial social stratification beyond economic class. This situation collapsed in the wake of explosive expansion of post-war suburban sprawl, which enabled white flight.
Image:LevittownPA.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.4|Aerial view of Levittown, Pennsylvania
The early to mid-twentieth century implementation of the suburb was thoroughly informed by this social context, and it was not uncommon for policymakers to inappropriately conflate small residential unit size, poverty, and crime with the traditional urban form; while simultaneously idealizing “rural” and upper class style estate living as its cure-all. The new car suburb was an affordable imitation of upper-class housing which became possible at such a vast scale when, after the war, factories could be turned over from producing military vehicles to consumer cars, helping to reduce the nominal price of a private automobile.
Originally in the US, the legal rule was that "all persons have an equal right in the highway, and that in exercising the right each shall take due care not to injure other users of the way". Pro-automobile interests advocated for the removal of non-drivers from the road, and particularly targeted pedestrians with the invention and criminalization of “jaywalking.” Importantly Federal, State, and Provincial governments undertook massive highway building programmes and also directly subsidized the purchasing of new suburban homes.
These government policies helped to make cars a practical choice and fostered the wholesale adoption of the car by the middle classes by the 1960s and helped to create the conditions for a decline in the quality, availability, and financial viability of public transportation. Increasingly the prestige and influence of New York and Chicago, with their high land prices and abundant skyscrapers, fostered a sense among many Canadian and Americans that “real cities” have tall buildings, and a "downtown" dominated by them, meanwhile European cities remained relatively medium-rise, dense, and pluricentric.
With this in mind, it is possible to understand the factors considered most important by policy makers in the mid-twentieth century context and how they pursued policies which would no longer allow for the previously dominant medium-density building types. The resulting policies radically reformed cities into ones that typically have a unicentric urban core which is dominated by tall buildings built to be reliant on office uses with the area often referred to as the central business district. This new "urban core" of stacked office uses is typically surrounded by swathes of sub-urban and peri-urban landscapes dominated by single-family homes with gardens serviced by the private automobile, car-centric retail destinations, and vast highway networks.
Impacts
Longer commuting patterns
The loss of flexible middle-density development serviced by affordable and widely used public transportation has resulted in high commute times for commuters, which have remained stubbornly unaffected by further investment in new road capacity due to the nature of induced demand, a practical limit on the space required to move large volumes of people in relatively large vehicles, and greatly increased costs for both the vehicle owner and government due to the inherent inefficiency compared to previous modes of transport. Other problems include difficulty for low-income residents to find affordable accommodation within a reasonably affordable and practical commute of their place of employment.Negative environmental impacts
Car-centric cities are less climate-friendly due to impacts relating to inefficient use of resources, volume of paved area contributing to flood risk, and potential loss of natural habitats to human development.Loss of small retail
Without middle-density development to support them, cities have lost retailers not operating with substantial economies of scale. “Mom and pop shops” are replaced by big-box stores.Loss of third spaces
Cities without middle density have also seen the loss of third places, places where people spend time which is neither their private residence nor their place of work. These places are important for recreation, meeting neighbours, for adults to make friends, and for community organization. The loss of these third places and small businesses is due to the need of both to rely on proximity to a large number of people for whom visiting them is easy, can be spontaneous, and would not require a special trip. Some have characterized the replacement of these “third places,” where historically people of all backgrounds in the neighbourhood gathered organically, by relatively fewer spaces where people must choose to drive, as a source of social filtering and potential source of social alienation.Some have suggested the loss of genuine “third spaces” as a contributing factor to a perceived reduction in a sense of belonging, inter-group social cohesion, and a rise in generalized loneliness.
Environmental racism
According to the environmental geographer Laura Pulido, the historical processes of suburbanization and urban decentralization have contributed to contemporary environmental racism.Causes
The polarization of Canadian and American cities into ones dominated by low- and high-density development with little in-between, has been due to implementing strict single-use land-use zoning laws at a municipal level which prioritizes these use types while making new medium-density illegal. This, combined with shifts in transportation planning at all levels, had helped to create a development paradigm which takes the private motor vehicle as its default mode of transportation, and only after that, considering other modes like walking, cycling, buses, streetcars, and subways. Public transport, where it still exists, has typically also built within this paradigm of car dependency. For example, GO Transit rail services in the Greater Toronto Area is one of the few commuter-rail services in either Canada or the United States, but is designed for commuters to drive to parking lots with a train platform where the rail service will take passengers to the CBD in the morning and return them to the parking lot in the afternoon, service has been unidirectional and only operated during rush hour.Possible solutions
Missing middle housing offers a greater choice in housing types that still blend into existing single-family neighborhoods, create more affordable housing options, and help reach sustainability goals. Missing middle housing units are usually smaller units than single-family homes because they share a lot with other homes, which results in lower per-unit land costs and, therefore, lower housing costs. Missing middle housing types are also one of the cheapest forms of housing to produce because they are typically low-rise, low parking and wood-frame construction, which avoids expensive concrete podiums. Because the construction and building materials are comparatively less complicated than larger mid- and high-rise structures, a larger pool of small-scale and local home builders can participate in the creation of this form of housing. To support municipal budgets, the denser and more efficient use of land and infrastructure may be financially productive for municipalities with more people paying taxes per acre for less infrastructure than large lot single-family homes.Increasing missing middle housing options may allow families of different sizes, types, and incomes to access quality housing. Missing middle housing tends to become naturally affordable housing as it ages, and provides a level of density that supports the shops, restaurants, and transit that are associated with walkable neighborhoods. Walkable neighborhoods may then support sustainability, health, and affordability goals by reducing reliance on personal vehicles. This would promote active transportation, reduce sprawl, reduce pollution, and reduce transportation costs by lessening the need for personal vehicles.
Missing middle housing options may allow seniors to downsize without leaving their neighborhood. For example, accessory dwelling units can enable multi-generation households to have privacy while all living on the same property. Missing middle housing may enable a wider range of families to achieve homeownership by offering a wider range of housing options and prices. Additionally, missing middle housing types such as accessory dwelling units can support mortgages through the rents of those secondary units. Overall, missing middle housing options can create housing at a wide range of prices for a range of family types.
Some property rights advocates believe that widely permitting missing middle housing expands property rights by allowing property owners more choice in how to use their property. Some equity advocates feel that permitting more diverse housing choices, such as missing middle housing, may reduce historic and modern inequities that keep less affluent people out of certain amenity-rich neighborhoods.