How to have livable urban density

jay Walljasper, Yes Magazine - Battle lines are shaping up across American cities and suburbs today over the issue of urban density. On one side stand neighbors and developers who explain that convenient transit, walkable communities, environmental protection, and continuing economic growth depend on welcoming more people per acre to our communities. On the other side stand developers and neighbors who plead that everything we cherish about our communities is about to vanish in the wake of hulking mega-projects.

    Declining malls offer prime suburban ground for building compact, attractive neighborhoods from scratch.

But there’s a middle ground in this conflict—which turns out to be quite a nice place to live. And a great example of commons-friendly communities. These are low- to mid-rise neighborhoods with high levels of density but a charming and convivial feel. Indeed the places many of us seek out on vacation, spending our scarce free time and travel budgets, are thronged with people—cosmopolitan cities, historic small towns, theme parks, and state fairs. It’s the proliferation of cars we fear in big new developments, not the density of fellow human beings.

Density has become a dirty word is because we associate it with ugly, gigantically scaled projects that seem to spawn social blight. But Edward McMahon, senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute, believes “we can achieve tremendous density without high rises” by utilizing traditional designs such as the two- to four-story walk-ups that were once “common in cities and towns throughout America.” Look at suburban Berwyn, Illinois, full of tidy brick bungalows but with a population density greater than that of neighboring Chicago.

Unfortunately, the best methods of achieving this kind of low-rise, neighborhood-scale density are illegal under many current zoning codes—attic, basement, or carriage-house apartments; granny flats or garden cottages at the back of a lot; unrelated adults sharing a house; small homes on small lots; houses without attached garages; shops around the corner.

Making such practices legal again would not only be good for urban vitality, historical character, and the environment but would also promote social justice, says Alan Durning of the Sightline Institute, author of Unlocking Home: Three Keys to Affordable Housing. “We have effectively banned what used to be the bottom end of the housing market,” he writes.

Your editor lived for many years on Capitol Hill in DC, one of the best urban places one could find. It was a 19th century working class neighborhood with one of the highest densities in the city. It was walkable, it had corner stores, alley dwellings and basement apartments in three story row houses. And you never felt crowded. 

Sam Smith, Utne Reader 2009 - Not everyone who leaves the city wants to. In a large number of cases, the cost and availability of housing provides the impetus.  Among the factors that have raised the cost and lowered the availability has been gentrification.  The gentrifiers not only upscaled the housing stock, they have reduced it, since they require more space per-capita in which to live than did former residents. One of the simplest, cheapest and quickest ways to counteract this trend is to permit accessory apartments (sometimes called granny flats) in single-family zones. Many of these apartments exist illegally -- there are an estimated 40,000 in LA alone -- supporting my theory that one of the best places to look for good ideas is in the underground economy.  If normally law-abiding people insist on doing something against the rules, there's a good chance that the people know something the law doesn't.

The advantages of such apartments include lowering the effective cost of housing for the homeowner, increasing the supply of housing, providing a social and economic mix within neighborhoods, allowing voluntary individual care to replace some of the need for social services (e.g. the young apartment dweller helping the aged landlord upstairs), providing neighborhood-based economic opportunity and increasing the number of eyes on the street. Reviving the practice of taking in boarders could also greatly improve the availability of housing. The boarder tradition played a major role in the growth of the American city, proving newcomers with an inexpensive place to stay and adding a source of income to those who had lived in the city long enough to own a house.