Boulder looks to limit McMansions

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The Boulder, Colorado city council recently discussed how to limit large houses and teardown McMansions:

Members were mostly in agreement with a goal of discouraging larger homes, including allowing landowners to subdivide large lots and build second, third or fourth housing structures — provided the new homes were permanently affordable. All members save one felt that encouraging subdivision in Boulder’s lowest-density districts was a good idea: Mirabai Nagle was the lone voice of dissent…

The surfeit of scrape-and-replace builds has already transformed the once-rural neighborhoods, councilwoman Lisa Morzel said in a rebuttal of Nagle’s position, with huge homes that take up every allowable inch of space.

“What was once very rural and very lovely and very open, it’s gone,” Morzel said. “With these giant fences, you can’t have the foxes, the deer, the mountain lions. You’re creating an impermeable” compound.”

Nagle was in favor of pursuing regulations to discourage larger homes, as were most other members. Councilman Bob Yates said he would need “a ton of data or a ton of discussion” before he took a firm position.

Many communities have made similar plans in recent decades. The Boulder leader will not have definite guidelines for a while and the devil might always be in the details of what exactly they allow and rule out.

1. What is the maximum size for new homes? This may seem like the obvious place to start but homes can be built in different ways that either emphasize or hide their large square footage.

2. How should the home sit on the lot? Similarly, a smaller house could appear problematic if it is really close to lot lines.

3. What architecture and design should the home feature? Some communities ask that new homes attempt to fit into the existing neighborhood design. Others might suggest that leading with a large garage in the front is a negative feature.

4. Related to the architecture and design is a question of how the new home should compare to nearby homes in height and width. A new home that is significantly taller can block light. A wider home could break up the streetscape.

ADUs and granny flats more popular in some parts of the country and not others

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Cities like Portland and Los Angeles may be interested in promoting accessory dwelling units (ADUs) but there is less interest in other parts of the United States:

The future for ADUs on the East Coast and in the Sun Belt is less clear. In older cities such as Boston and New York, much of the housing stock was built before World War II and is more dense than postwar suburban neighborhoods. Sun Belt cities such as Atlanta, Dallas and Phoenix were developed more recently, but housing prices, for the most part, have not reached the peaks seen on the West Coast.

“If you grew up in New York City or Boston, you have a different acceptance for density, rather than in the West, where open space has always been prized,” Chapple said. “It has been really hard to retrofit these cities that were built at a later time.”

In the District of Columbia, it’s common to find ADUs in the form of finished basements under older townhouses. Suburbs such as Montgomery County, Maryland, offer a better opportunity for detached accessory dwellings. Before 2013, Montgomery homeowners had to endure a complex process of reviews that took several months. Five years ago, the rules were relaxed to allow for licensing in about 90 to 110 days. The measure drew controversy because of concerns about parking, trash and crowding of neighborhood schools.

Dan Reed, an urban planner and Montgomery resident since 1991, said that the measure has proved popular and that the county might be primed to ease regulation further.

The first factor for ADUs seems to be the price of housing. In areas where prices are relatively high, much of the West Coast, ADUs are viewed as good ways to promote cheaper housing.

The second factor seems to be density of properties. Smaller lots mean less space for ADUs as well as ADUs likely being closer to other housing.

A third factor is regulation. How easy is it for a homeowner or landowner to create an ADU on their property?

I wonder if there are some other possible factors at play that could help explain regional differences. Are all people everywhere willing to have others live on their property (or does financial need overrule this)? Could suburbanites view ADUs as a threat to property values? Are there certain architectural styles that lend themselves to ADUs? Does the presence of alleys help or hinder the development of ADUs? Do some places have a longer history of ADU use (such as through multiple generations living on a property or the presence of servants)?

The suburban dimension to the Kavanaugh hearings

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The testimony from Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh all revolved around a suburban high school social scene. Some suburban features of the matter at hand:

-Kavanaugh lived in Bethesda, Maryland. This community just northwest of Washington D.C. is largely white as well as very wealthy and educated. Ford also lived in the Washington D.C. suburbs.

-Kavanaugh described his summers in high school as involving working (having his own lawn mower business, working in construction) and getting together with friends. It sounds like they were able to drive themselves places. They had some measure of independence to engage in teenager activities. Ford described spending many summer days at the country club pool.

-Both Kavanaugh and Ford went to private schools in high school and highly ranked colleges (Yale and the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill).

-The partying and drinking scene at people’s houses and other settings (like the beach) sounds like descriptions I have heard about parties in wealthier suburbs as well as occasional stories relayed to me from my own suburban setting.

-Kavanaugh described himself as working really hard at school even as he also came from a family with good jobs and resources. He also described participation in a number of high school activities including football.

-Kavanaugh had a decent-sized group of friends who hung out and knew each other fairly well (even if they have not kept up so well over the years since high school).

-A number of the physical settings mentioned in the hearing are common in suburbia. The alleged assault took place at a two-story suburban house in nearby Chevy Chase (also a very white and wealthy suburb) that probably does not stand out much from neighboring houses. Ford described running into Mark Judge at a local supermarket.

-Both Ford and Kavanaugh ended up in successful careers that might be considered befitting of their wealthier suburban origins: Kavanaugh has a law degree and is a judge and Ford has a Ph.D. and is a psychologist.

The descriptions of this suburban life from the allegation and the denial seem like they could come from any number of wealthier American suburbs. These are places where teenagers often have a good measure of independence and some access to vehicles, money, and alcohol (and/or drugs), the teenagers generally end up as successes, and some mischief or misdeeds are allowable for kids from good families (and perhaps even encouraged). On one hand, these are the sorts of places where teenage life can look pretty good. On the other hand, as the hearings imply, wealthier suburban life can go horribly wrong in ways that resources and success can not easily remedy.

Divorce down, marriage down, telling a full story

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Recent sociological work highlights how looking past the initial findings – divorce rates are down in America – reveals a more complicated reality:

In the past 10 years, the percentage of American marriages that end in divorce has fallen, and in a new paper, the University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen quantified the drop-off: Between 2008 and 2016, the divorce rate declined by 18 percent overall…

The point he was making was that people with college degrees are now more likely to get married than those who have no more than a high-school education. And the key to understanding the declining divorce rate, Cherlin says, is that it is “going down some for everybody,” but “the decline has been steepest for the college graduates.”

The reason that’s the case is that college graduates tend to wait longer to get married as they focus on their career. And they tend to have the financial independence to postpone marriage until they’re more confident it will work. This has translated to lower rates of divorce: “If you’re older, you’re more mature … you probably have a better job, and those things make it less likely that you’ll get into arguments with your spouse,” Cherlin says…

Chen connects this trend to the decline of well-paying jobs for those without college degrees, which, he argues, makes it harder to form more stable relationships. Indeed, Cohen writes in his paper that marriage is “an increasingly central component of the structure of social inequality.” The state of it today is both a reflection of the opportunities unlocked by a college degree and a force that, by allowing couples to pool their incomes, itself widens economic gaps.

It would be interesting to see how many of those who might celebrate the finding that divorce rates are going down also discuss the reasons linked to financial stability, education levels, and inequality.

Take more conservative Christian churches as a possible example. Evangelical Protestants are often proudly in favor of marriage (between a man and a woman). They work hard to provide programs for families as well as classes and sermons about marriage and family life. They would generally be opposed to divorce or at least view it as less than ideal. But, having conversations about how marriage is less attainable for some Americans or the evolving idea that one needs to be financially independent before marrying might be less common. How often do topics of social class and inequality come up from the front in many congregations? Or, discussions could turn to why Americans do not make correct individual choices rather than focusing on social pressures and structures (financial independence, it is more acceptable to cohabit) that influence all Americans (including conservative Christians). Ultimately, the findings may not be that good for evangelicals: divorce is down because Americans are getting married less and cohabiting more. If they want to encourage more marriage, they would have to respond to these larger social forces at work.

Can proposed legislation on housing prompt a public discussion?

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A new bill proposed in the Senate by Elizabeth Warren attempts to address housing issues:

It aims to lower the cost of developing housing so landlords don’t have to make rents so high, coming at the issue from two different angles. From one end, it tries to increase the supply of affordable housing by pouring billions of federal dollars into programs that subsidize developments in rural, low-income, and middle-income communities.

From the other end, the bill attempts to strip away the zoning laws that made developing housing so expensive in the first place. Many of these zoning laws limit low-income residents from moving to wealthier neighborhoods. In Tegeler’s opinion, the laws are one of the main drivers of housing unaffordability. Those laws typically exist at a local level, so in order to target them, Warren’s bill creates a competitive block grant program. The grant money could be spent flexibly—on schools or parks, for example—and is intended to appeal to suburban communities with stricter zoning laws.  Those communities can only access grants if they reexamine and redress their land restrictions.

The bill also focuses on the ways housing inequality falls along racial lines. Notably, it assists populations that federal housing policy has historically failed: formerly segregated African American populations and families whose housing wealth was destroyed in the financial crisis. Under the bill, black families long denied mortgages by the federal government qualify for down payment assistance, helping many in formerly segregated communities to become first-time home buyers. The bill also invests two billion dollars to support borrowers still recovering from the financial crisis with negative equity on their mortgages.

The bill also restructures the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a 1977 law proposed to monitor banks with discriminatory loan policies against communities of color. Warren’s bill gives the CRA more enforcement mechanisms and expands its policing power to include credit unions and nonbank mortgage companies, which were not as ubiquitous when the bill was passed. Lastly, the bill strengthens anti-discrimination laws by expanding Fair Housing Act protections to include gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, and source of income, attempting to limit housing segregation in the future.

It sounds like the bill tries to strike a balance between incentives for communities and developers and strengthening enforcement of guidelines against housing discrimination.

It will be interesting to see what tone the public debate takes, if it even reaches the level of public discussion. Housing issues are not on the national political radar screen. Historically, many Americans are reluctant to address housing concerns through the federal government. They would rather leave these matters to local governments, if government should address the matter at all. Support for public housing has always been limited.

Similarly, even stating an intention of trying to encourage certain suburban communities to open up their doors to different kinds of residents is a hard sell. Minorities and immigrants are indeed moving to suburbia but where they locate or can live is not necessarily even. (See this recent example from the Chicago suburbs of high black homeownership in certain communities.) A good number of suburbanites would attribute the residential segregation patterns to economic options and/or the ability of local communities to draw up guidelines of what kind of community they want to be (such as one without certain kinds of housing).

I would not expect such a bill to be an easy sell or even one that can garner much attention, even if it addresses issues that affect millions of Americans.

Chicago neighborhoods lead the way in percentage and absolute numbers of millennials

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Chicago continues to be a draw for young adults:

According to U.S. Census population estimates, 73 percent of West Loop residents (6,800 people) are millennials. California-based apartment search website RENTCafe.com analyzed the data, ranking ZIP codes in the country’s 30 largest U.S. cities. And the West Loop — ZIP code 60661 — is home to a higher percentage of people born between 1977 and 1996 than any other in the country, according to their analysis.

But the trendy downtown-adjacent neighborhood doesn’t come close to several other Chicago areas in terms of sheer numbers. Lakeview, Logan Square, Irving Park, Lincoln Park, Chicago Lawn, Pilsen and Lincoln Square — each home to more than 30,000 millennials — all rank among the top 20 ZIP codes in the nation with the largest millennial population, according to RENTCafe.

While the emphasis in the rest of the article is on the excitement in such neighborhoods, I want to hold the data up to two larger trends.

These figures may suggest Chicago continues to draw young adults from throughout the Midwest. From an area roughly from Detroit to Omaha, Minneapolis to St. Louis, Chicago pulls in a lot of residents to the leading city in the middle of the country. This is happening even as the US population continues to shift to the South and West.

Furthermore, these high percentages of millennials may seem out of place considering Chicago’s population loss in recent years. On one hand, the city as a whole is struggling to retain residents. On the other hand, a good number of millennials want to move to and live in Chicago. The long-term trick may be for the city to figure how to keep these millennials in the city even as millennials on the whole might prefer the suburbs later in life.

Even with all of its issues, Chicago is still a desirable place to live, particularly for millennials. These neighborhoods with younger adults could prove very important to helping the city retain its status as a leading global city.

Creative (trolls out of recycled wood!) and profitable (record attendance!) art at Morton Arboretum

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How do you attract more people to a suburban arboretum? Have unique art installations with one large work loom over a busy highway:

Created by famed Danish artist Thomas Dambo, the exhibit features six large troll statues — most 15 to 20 feet high — made of repurposed wood and other recycled and natural materials, and spread throughout the 1,700-acre arboretum…

In July, about 163,000 people visited the arboretum — the most ever reported in a single month, Sargent said. The previous monthly record of 150,000 was set in October 2011. And last month was also a successful one, Sargent said, with more than 140,000 visitors.

In surveys and anecdotally, visitors explain they come specifically to see the trolls, but they’re also staying to see other parts of the arboretum they’ve never seen before, she said…

Dambo told the Tribune earlier this year that after he was approached to work on the exhibit — similar to art installations he’s completed in Copenhagen, Denmark, and South Korea — he would ride his bike around the arboretum to identify spots to place his creations. He wanted people to explore the grounds and its hiking paths to find all the trolls.

Art works often serve two masters: aesthetic beauty and reflection on the world as well as commercial concerns. Artists may not often talk about the commercial imperative – they have to eat too – while other actors may use art to bring in money.

Take public art displayed on street or public spaces of communities. On one hand, the art can enhance the experience of being in particular locations. Think of the Picasso statue in Daley Plaza in Chicago: it is a unique work by a very famous artist that is not easy to interpret. It is still popular decades later. Without the art, the plaza could be interpreted as a dreary concrete land amid tall buildings.

PicassoStatueChicago

On the other hand, art can draw people to a location and help encourage them to spend money. Communities want more visitors because they then buy items in shops, eat at restaurants, and bring in more money through payment to local businesses as well as through tax revenues. Take this statue of Paul Revere on the Freedom Trail in Boston:

paulrevereboston.jpg

The statue commemorates an important historical event but think of all the visitors that come to Boston to partake in this colonial history. Think of how much money they spend on hotels and food and tourist activities. This statue is part of a system that helps the local economy. It is still art but it also helps generate money.

There are inevitably tensions between these two poles: beauty and money. We have terms for this, such as sellout, someone who has given up on the artistic and creative side and now is just in it for the money. With public art, the two sides often go hand in hand: creativity leads to money which can lead back to more funds and will for creativity and so on. It is probably too simple to say everyone can win in these scenarios and yet many communities (and artists) continue to seek public art installations.

Why do communities allow charities to collect money by standing at intersections?

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I live near a suburban intersection that regularly has people from charities standing at the stop signs to collect money. I suspect the suburb is willing to let this happen for two reasons:

  1. It is good for the city to allow local charities to be out in the community. This helps build good relationships between everyone. The charities then help people in the community.
  2. The strategy is effective. The people collecting money are in direct eye contact with possible donors. As people come to a stop, they feel obligated to drop some change into the bucket or jug. While this method likely does not lead to large sums of money being donated by a single person, it can add up quickly.

On the other hand, this is an odd way to collect money for a few reasons:

  1. Suburban drivers just want to get through the intersection, not be slowed down. Even if they do not give money and have an interaction with the person standing there, they have to be more careful with a person in the roadway.
  2. Many drivers would respond much more negatively if another party was collecting money or soliciting people at this same spot. Many communities have homeless or jobless people sitting at intersections looking for help or people selling items or services (like squeegeing a windshield without the driver asking for it).
  3. Having people stand in the roadway is generally not a good idea given the lack of attention paid to pedestrians.

Perhaps communities try to balance these two sides by only offering limited numbers of opportunities for charities to do this (it can’t happen every week, for example) or limiting activity to certain intersections where drivers are going slower and traffic is not impeded as much.

On the whole, this particular method is unusual and maybe only certain charities can get away with it with limited exposure to drivers.

More on self-driving rooms and homes

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Parts of your home or even your home itself could soon be on wheels and drive around without your help:

Honda recently announced the IeMobi Concept. It is an autonomous mobile living room that attaches and detaches from your home. When parked, the vehicle becomes a 50-square-foot living or workspace. Mercedes-Benz Vans rolled out an all-electric digitally-connected van with fully integrated cargo space and drone delivery capability, and Volvo just unveiled its 360c concept vehicle that serves as either a living room or mobile office. In other cases, some folks are simply retrofitting existing vehicles. One couple in Oxford England successfully converted a Mercedes Sprinter van into a micro-home that includes 153 square feet of living space, a complete kitchen, a sink, a fridge, a four-person dining area, and hidden storage spaces.

For those who are either unwilling or unable to own a home, self-driving van houses could become a convenient and affordable solution.  Soon, our mobile driverless vehicles may allow us to work from our cars and have our laundry and a hot meal delivered at the same time. In Los Angeles alone, it is estimated that 15,000 people are already living in their cars and in most countries it is perfectly legal to live in your vehicle.

Three quick thoughts:

  1. The possibilities for adding a new and mobile room onto the homes of Americans might prove to be irresistible. Now I can add a room in which I can just drive away? Or, I can throw all sorts of things in there and then drive it out of view!
  2. The micro-home idea will find a market, particularly since the vehicles seem less cumbersome than the typical tiny home. At the same time, I imagine some wealthier communities will work to keep these sorts of vehicles out of the community. It may be an affordable option but if residents have concerns about apartment dwellers, wouldn’t they certainly have concerns about people who live out of their vehicles?
  3. These changes might only add to sprawl as it would enable residents to be more mobile. This could feed into the allure of driving and mobility. Of course, if some people give up large suburban homes for more mobile homes, perhaps the effects of sprawl might be reduced. Yet, I suspect that a good number of owners of mobile rooms and homes are purchasing them as a luxury item in addition to a home.

People can live in modernist glass houses…if they have 6 acres in the woods

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I have argued Americans prefer McMansions to modernist homes. Another reason this might be the case: the glass modernist house works better on certain kinds of properties.

But it wasn’t until they found the perfect piece of property in the Lake Minnetonka community of Woodland that they were able to make their glass house dream a reality.

They’d been planning to sell their three-story Arts & Crafts-style home in Orono, and were on the hunt for secluded, wooded acreage in the western suburbs…

In 2012, a 6-acre property with wetlands, a bog and a small lake popped up on the MLS. The land, which was in foreclosure, was in Woodland.

Kathleen was entranced by the tiny woodsy hamlet of twisting and turning roads. So, the couple consulted architect Tim Alt of ALTUS Architecture + Design about the property. He advised them to go for it.

This home holds all kind of appeal to modernists: black, low to the ground, lots of windows, multiple wings for different uses, and utilizes materials that fit with the unique natural setting. Yet, how realistic is it to expect such a home to be located near other homes? Even residents who like such architecture are unlikely to sacrifice all their privacy by living in this home within a traditional neighborhood. Americans like single-family homes partly because of the privacy they tend to offer away from prying eyes of neighbors of the government.

Then, finding the right kind of property – away from other homes, attractive nature views – becomes an extra burden or set of resources required for this kind of modernist home. These requirements likely mean it is outside the reach of many homeowners. The modernist home becomes the elite home.

All this means that it is unlikely such homes will be popular. Perhaps this was already clear since one of the models for the Minnetonka home dates back to 1949 and that design is not exactly all over the place. Such modernist homes will continue as curiosities or give people a home to aspire to even as they continue to buy mass-produced McMansions and ranches.