Tiny homes that also come with community

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Fewer square feet than an average new house is one feature of tiny homes. For some tiny homes, they also come with built-in community:

With the tiny home lifestyle comes a certain determination to do more with less. Of course, this explains why tiny home owners are choosing to flock to dedicated subdivisions with like-minded individuals opting for a simpler life. According to Randy Hanson, the longtime developer behind Lake Walk Tiny Home Community in Greer, this shared philosophy has forged a strong connection between residents.

“Tiny houses create more of a close society and close community than anything else. I’ve been developing subdivisions all my life, and I’ve never seen this before. The people have formed almost like a family and they do things together,” says Hanson. “The houses are close enough together and they all have front porches. They sit on their front porches and holler back and forth like the old days.”

Sitting along the shore of Lake Cunningham, Lake Walk’s amenities include a dog park, community garden and picnic area, as well as a newly opened coffee shop. Of the community’s more than 60 lots, only three sites remain available…

After a year and a half of navigating the permitting process, Creek Walk Tiny Home Community in Travelers Rest is perhaps South Carolina’s newest tiny home village. Located along the Swamp Rabbit Trail and in prime distance of Greenville proper, Creek Walk offers access to downtown locales while also providing the peace and seclusion of nature. Whereas traditional, full-scale developments would require leveling a wooded area before construction could even begin, tiny homes are small enough to position among the trees. This means that rather than waiting a lifetime for the tiny sapling you planted in your yard to reach full size, you can enjoy the shade of a hearty forest on move-in day. In this way, tiny home communities can be about preservation as much as they are about destination.

Many homes are part of subdivisions. What makes these communities much different? Four possible answers:

1. The houses are still separate but are smaller and closer together. Unlikely townhomes and condos that allow residents to own their unit but are connected to other units, tiny houses have both the closeness and separation.

2. These tiny house communities may face unique zoning and regulatory challenges. As the article notes, not all municipalities are prepared for this.

3. More so than typical subdivisions, these communities might really bring people together for lifestyle reasons. Those who want a tiny house may be more alike each other than the typical homeowner.

4. Speculation on my part: because the homes are relatively small,residents spend less time inside or in private spaces and thus interact with each other more than typical homeowners.

Limiting suburban through traffic by putting up gates during rush hour

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Some neighborhoods and communities are fed up with people cutting through on their streets. A Denver suburb considers putting up gates:

The town of about 800 is now proposing gates at two main entrance/exit points, blocking access during the morning and evening rush…

“The traffic has become increasingly problematic both in volume and speeding. The Town does not have sidewalks and it is dangerous for residents to walk,” said Lisa Jones, mayor of the Town of Foxfield.

While two gate locations are recommended, there are still about a half dozen other entrances to Foxfield that would not be gated. The gates will be paid for by the Town of Foxfield.

I can imagine a driving landscape in a decade or so where only certain vehicles are allowed down certain streets. Imagine a large city banning Uber and/or Lyft during certain hours of the day. A wealthy suburb restricting access to delivery trucks in the early morning. Another community not wanting commuters to go through residential neighborhoods. A neighborhood not allowing certain size vehicles (like oversized pickup trucks).

All of these might help local residents feel better but they fail to help with the bigger problem: traffic is a regional issue. Communities should be working together on these issues, not walling themselves off. Creating more private space will only serve to make the problem worse for everyone.

I am not sure who exactly would have any sway in these matters. In the case above, it sounds like other communities could lodge objections and emergency services could require that the gates allow them access. Should state transportation agencies look into this? Can a legislature suggest restrictions cannot be put on public roads? Could a coalition of local and regional governments make a pact not to do this to each other? Perhaps this is not needed yet as few communities have gone too far down this road. But, it might come sooner than we think.

Black homeownership rates similar to before 1968 Fair Housing Act

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An article about homeownership among black millennials includes this statistic:

Homeownership levels for blacks reached 42.7% in the third quarter of 2019 (compared with 64.8% for the overall population), a near-record low that has virtually erased all of the gains made since the passage of the Fair Housing ACt in 1968, landmark legislation outlawing housing discrimination, census data show.

“African Americans are already being left out of the housing market and that’s exacerbating levels of inequality in this country,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist and senior vice president of research at the National Association of Realtors. “There’s a kind of urgency now within the housing community to bring younger African American buyers into real estate.”

Despite a decade of economic growth in the United States, including record low unemployment and higher wages for black workers, millennials of color make up only a small portion of the overall market for real estate, data show.

This cannot be good. Even as other economic figures might be good, owning a home offers a key way for Americans to build wealth over time. Going further, not having a home means being at the whim of landlords, perhaps more instability regarding having housing, and limited access to wealthier communities where a majority of residents own homes. Furthermore, this data suggests not much has changed in 50 years; does this hint that the gap between groups in the United States remains relatively unchanged?

If the next generation of young adults is struggling to purchase homes, that suggests the problem will continue for at least another 10-20 years. If there are politicians serious about fighting inequality, wouldn’t this be a good issue to take up, particularly given the persistent gaps between black and Latino homeownership and white homeownership?

A short history of the kitchen island

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The open concept kitchen and living space is ubiquitous these days and it often includes a sizable island that stands between the food preparation space and the living. How did that island develop?

The earliest islands were humble worktables in the center of the kitchen (think downstairs at Downton Abbey). The open kitchen and built-in island didn’t arrive until the 20th century.

“The iconic suburban image of the command-post kitchen where the woman of the house could do her work and observe the kids really resonated in 1950s America,” says Sarah Leavitt, curator at the National Building Museum in Washington. “The idea was to build this concept of family and togetherness right into the actual architecture and design of the house.”

While the island was an aspirational symbol of modern housekeeping, it was mostly a product of postwar construction of suburban single-family homes. It gained momentum through the 1960s and ’70s but didn’t become a mainstream design element until the 1980s and ’90s, when open-plan kitchens became the rage, buoyed by the popularity of the Food Network and HGTV.

Suddenly, the island wasn’t just a prep space but also a stage to perform for your guests, though visibility has its drawbacks. “It looks nice when it’s clean,” Leavitt says, “but given the potential for mess, it’s surprising that it continues to have widespread appeal.”

An interesting shift over the span of roughly one hundred years: from a surface for getting things done in the kitchen to a gendered command center to more of a performance space and status symbol. A few thoughts:

1. Would knowing the past history of the island – workspace, more out of sight in upper-class households, and place for wives/mothers to observe their household – change how current homeowners think about the island? Is the island now past all of these connotations and simply about appearances or modern conceptions of open family space? Do homeowners and visitors feel like islands are freeing or are they confining in new ways?

2. Could the pendulum swing back to using the island for essential duties? Imagine a continuing decrease in social interaction and less justification in buying entertaining spaces when entertaining in large numbers rarely happens. Or, a backlash against all the eating out leads to more people prepping food at home.

3. The full article suggests some have already reacted against islands by going back to tables which have some nice features in comparison. Is the perfect world then having space both for a sizable island and an intriguing table?

 

Property massively misvalued by accident, consequences to come

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Correctly entering property values into tax databases is an important task. When it goes wrong, lots of people might have to pay:

The 1,570-square-foot house built in 1978 on 2 acres in an unincorporated area of the county was recorded in 2019 tax rolls with a market rate value of more than $987 million and an overestimate of about $543 million in taxable value. In reality, the property should have only had a 2019 taxable value of $302,000, according to county property records.

That error — which the Wasatch County assessor explained possibly occurred when a staff member may have dropped their phone on their keyboard — has resulted in a countywide overvaluation of more than $6 million and revenue shortfalls in five different Wasatch County taxing entities.

The biggest impact was on the Wasatch County School District, unable to collect nearly $4.4 million already budgeted.

Wasatch County officials say they “deeply regret” the error and are reviewing policies and procedures to ensure it never happens again. But they’re also warning Wasatch County taxpayers they will likely see an increased tax rate over perhaps the next three years to make up for the lower amount collected in 2019.

Communities rely on correct property assessments to lead to paid taxes which then generate monies for local governments and services. If something goes wrong in that pipeline – here it was a wrong value which was not caught for months – then essential services may not be provided. This all happens in the background, making it essential infrastructure that like other public works do not often get recognized unless it goes really wrong.

One thought: could the software or databases have a built-in checker that would flag significant year-to-year changes? In this case, a significantly higher assessment one year could trigger a warning to check the numbers again.

A second thought: do we know anything about the correctness of entries in such databases? Are they 99% accurate, 99.9% accurate, 99.99% correct? Even at these high rates of accuracy, a few incorrect values could make a difference.

Tech jobs continue to congregate in particular metropolitan regions

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A new analysis looks at where tech jobs located between 2005 and 2017:

Researchers from the Brookings Institution and the Information Technology and Innovation Fund, a tech-industry-backed think tank, arrived at their conclusion by looking at a fairly narrow slice of jobs—13 industries that involve the highest rate of research and development spending and STEM degrees per worker. That includes much of the software industry, as well as jobs in areas like pharmaceuticals and aerospace. The researchers found that, between 2005 and 2017, five metro areas—San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, and Boston— not only added lots of jobs, they were also becoming more dominant in those industries overall.

TechJobsWired2005to2017

In part, that’s due to changes in what businesses need, says Enrico Moretti, an economist at UC Berkeley who wasn’t involved in the study. The enduring dominance of some tech hubs is somewhat counterintuitive. Technology was supposed to be a democratizing force—the internet and iPhone would make it possible to do innovative work from just about anywhere. But instead, high-tech industries became about proximity to your fellow high-tech workers. Businesses clustered around hubs of investment, in places where skilled workers could stick around after school, hop between jobs, and stay in touch with contacts. That plays out on an individual level too, Moretti says. In recent research tracking the patent activity of scientists as they moved in and out of places like the Bay Area, Moretti found that they were far more productive in those innovative hubs…

The researchers’ point is that it’s hard to build hubs of innovation from scratch—in places where the economy is really struggling, and where there’s little existing tech talent. Instead, you want to start with places that are already buzzing, and through a mix of investment—in things like R&D, education fellowships, and financing for small businesses—and tax incentives to encourage new business, nudge them to become innovation hubs. In other words, those places are already fertile ground for high-tech companies, but they need a little more fertilizer to get there. The researchers prefer federal investment to local subsidies that try to attract individual businesses—an often fruitless effort for smaller communities, as incidents like the downsized Foxconn factory in Wisconsin and Amazon’s HQ2 search demonstrate.

How exactly these centers of industry arise, thrive, and consolidate (and then maybe fade away or die?) is a good subject of academic study. Through a series of decisions, conditions, and good circumstances, agglomerations start. Inertia can carry them for a long time. As noted in the last paragraph, it can be difficult to introduce competition from other centers or create new centers once the main locations are well-established. Tech center do not just happen; they are the result of multiple social processes, interactions, and decisions.

Additionally, it is interesting to see that there is still a lot of value of actual physical locations near other businesses or organizations – even in a field that can render spatial and time distances less relevant. Being close to other people, being able to actually stop by or talk to them, still matters. All of this can add up to a location with a collection of similar organizations being more than the sum of its parts.

A restaurant smaller than a McMansion dining room

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McMansions are known for having a lot of space; certain restaurants try to keep the dining room very small. Thus, the comparison between an Omaha cafe and a McMansion dining room might not seem out of place:

You feel at home in Sojourn the minute you walk in the door and down a hall that’s separated from the eating area. When you reach the cafe, it’s much like you’re entering your own dining room. The serving area, with 12 tables for four, is smaller than some dining rooms in suburban McMansions.

OmahaRestaurantDiningRoom

However, this appears to be a decent-sized space with room for twelve tables, 48 customers (plus the small countertop in the back), and still some room for people to get by. And if this estimate of 12 square feet per diner is anywhere close, this space has roughly 570 square feet.

This would make for a very large McMansion dining room. Even with the interest Americans might have in always having some extra space, how many times does a McMansion owner need to seat 48 people? A 20 foot by 20 foot square McMansion dining room comprising of 400 square feet would be smaller than this space. A 40 foot by 15 foot rectangular dining room would be slightly larger than this. The size of this cafe is probably more akin to a great room or family room in a McMansion rather than a dining room.

So why the comparison here to a McMansion? Two guesses. First, the emphasis is on the relatively small space of the cafe. While the video does not suggest the space is too tight, the dining room would certainly be lively with a half full or more dining room. This is not a suburban chain restaurant with tables upon tables; this is a limited space. Second, the description attempts to highlight the coziness and warmth of the space. McMansions have plenty of space as well as limited charm due to their cookie-cutter nature and cavernous rooms.

Designing your own Peytonville, Part 4

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The new Peytonville commercial from Nationwide includes shots of a football stadium on a college campus:

Peytonville4

From exterior appearances, this might be the fanciest stadium in college football. Yesterday, I wondered if people would more likely place Peyton Manning in his college days or in his long NFL days. The stadium in this commercial is an NFL stadium with its shiny exterior, almost complete roof, and scale. This stadium does not fit on the traditional looking college campus featured earlier in the commercial; this stadium belongs among the gleaming offices and condos in an urban center.

Is this a hidden prediction about where college stadiums will go next? Imagine JerryWorld in Texas but instead for Alabama football or Michigan football. Would the big football schools realize some extra revenue or value in being the first stadium to mimic the big pro stadiums?

Designing your own Peytonville, Part 3

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A new Peytonville commercial from Nationwide is on television. This one focuses on the college campus:

Peytonville3

For all of the big images from the first commercial – the wide shots of a metropolitan region – the focus here is on a traditional looking college campus. In the image above, there is the impressive brick building, likely home to administrative offices. There is the gate marking the main entrance. Students and other people are walking and biking in and around campus. The lawns are well-manicured, the sidewalks wide.

And lurking in the back left is the football stadium. I should have known that with Peyton Manning in the commercials that the emphasis would not remain solely on small town life outside the big city. In the wide shots from the original commercial, it appears the college campus is on the top left:

Peytonville1

The campus is a good distance away from downtown and might even exist on its own platform.

One concern: do viewers associate Peyton Manning more with college football or pro football? He had successful years at Tennessee. But, he really stood out in the professional ranks where he won two Super Bowls, one season MVP, went to the Pro Bowl numerous times, and set multiple passing records. Peyton is on campus in the commercial but wouldn’t he be better set outside of the Colts stadium in downtown Indianapolis or the Broncos stadium in Denver? Such a scene would not lend itself to the green, bucolic college campus.

National political leaders’ connections to cities, urban areas, and population centers

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In thinking over the (dwindling) 2020 Democratic field for president, I wondered whether national politicians on the whole come from big cities and metropolitan regions. Some (somewhat incoherent) thoughts on the possible connection:

1. The United States is an urbanized country with a little over 80% of residents living in metropolitan areas. Most people live in these places, more politicians come from these places.

2. Politicians need to connect to large pools of voters before they hit the national stage. They can do that in sizable regions/cities and build a base before seeking a larger presence.

3. If national politicians do not necessarily connect with cities, it still seems to help to come from a more populous state where they have appealed to more voters and can make a stronger case about facing complexity before addressing a national stage. I’m thinking of George W. Bush who had numerous connections to Dallas, came from Texas, yet seemed to prefer more rural life in Crawford. He may not have been an urbanite but he had enough connections and experience in one of the most populous cities and states. In contrast, politicians like Bill Clinton or Nikki Haley might have to work harder to reach the national scene coming from less populous states or communities or those operating in second tier cities or regions like Jay Inslee in Washington state or Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota.

4. Does social media help candidates breakthrough an urban/rural divide? If the ultimate outcomes still come to votes, probably not.

5. Is there a major candidate or figure in any party who truly exemplifies a suburban lifestyle? I can think off the top of my head of numerous figures from big cities and others from more rural areas but who is a suburbanite in an era when political elections are decided by suburban voters?