
What a street looks like 39 years after legalizing fourplexes - luu
https://www.sightline.org/2019/06/21/this-is-what-a-street-looks-like-39-years-after-legalizing-fourplexes/
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skrebbel
As a Dutchman, I'll never understand the American idea that "suburban feel"
has to mean "fully detached houses". I mean, I live in a country where nearly
all suburbs and small towns consist of mostly connected houses - duplexes,
triplexes, hexadecaplexes (pardon if my Latin fails me here), and so on.

The big downside to such housing (I live in the middle of a chain of 20-odd
connected houses) is that gardens are small-ish and close to the neighbours'.
If they barbecue, you're sitting in the smoke. But hey, this isn't Texas,
people only grill every so often. At the same time, the benefits are enormous:
because suburban density is higher, everything is biking distance, even in
bigger cities. You need a car for less, which means that there's less cars, so
streets are safer.

The local suburban shopping areas are well equipped and nearby (biking
distance and often walking distance). In my suburb, there's a few "shopping
areas", i.e. street corners with a supermarket and a bunch of other shops
(drugstore, kebab parlor, clothes maybe, etc). These shopping areas are not
even _a kilometer apart_ from one another. If you live halfway two then you
can walk 500m either direction and have sufficient facilities for your daily
needs. These shops can stay in business _because_ the suburb is relatively
densely populated. If we had detached housing everywhere, the shops would need
to be bigger (to make it worth driving to), and thus further away (cheaper
rent), and thus need big tarmac parking lots, making it harder in turn to
visit multiple shops in a row, etc. It's just a nasty downward spiral.

I'm really glad the Dutch housing culture developed this way. I mean even
small towns in cheap areas are built this way, even if the ground prices would
mean detached houses are affordable for most. People just want to live close
to facilities. Connected housing is the best backyard-included way to
accomplish that.

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ashildr
Biking is for liberals and not needing a car is socialism...

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skrebbel
I know you're trying to do the kind of non-witty sarcasm that usually just
yields endless downvotes on HN, but you're onto something that I hadn't
considered. I don't associate cars with anything, culturally. They're just a
thing I use, like the dishwasher. But if there's a deep cultural idea that
"car = freedom" then a residential area built around cars makes a lot more
sense.

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jdormit
This is absolutely part of the American cultural bedrock. The gap-year road-
trip, the teenager's first car, every single fast and furious movie... A
really good recent example of this sort of meme is the movie Baby Driver.
American culture equates driving with freedom, youth, and good times. Getting
a car is a rite of passage in a lot of US communities.

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kshacker
This is how I was discussing with someone how growth should be. Rather than
allowing developers to build a 1000 unit monstrosity (well monstrosities may
also be allowed but within limits), allow the city to grow by relaxing limits
on everyone and you will see that over 20 years, some of the new supply will
come from the houses already there.

However today, I have seen examples in bay area, cities get pitted against
residents (some call them nimbys but I do not agree with the characterization)
by approving these monstrosities I mention and keeping the rules fairly rigid
for ordinary homeowners. Some say it is because a) the developers have money
to finance the politicians, and b) this allows the councillors to keep the
development on the side of the city they do not live in. Not sure if the
allegations of nimbyism to their neighborhoods are true, but have seen
developer money talk.

The article's example would be a welcome change if cities went this way.

[ Dont want to name cities, but google cities vs residents with some creative
search terms (yes I am not giving exact terms) and you will find many examples
in bay area. ]

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cannonedhamster
So the author's street doesn't properly have off street parking for everyone
meaning if it snows you can't plow. Kids can't play in the street anywhere and
you're more likely to get terrible neighbors. I'll pass. My last neighbors
used to burn their garbage in their lawn leaving ash to drift onto our cars
and the fire department told them to claim it was a cooking fire if anyone
complained. I get why people who enjoy cities wouldn't be opposed to this but
I'm okay with my property value not going down because the types of people
renters brings tend to care less about the neighborhood and having my
neighbors far away from my house so they can do their thing and we can do ours
without forcing our life choices on each other.

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0815test
> ...you're more likely to get terrible neighbors. ... the types of people
> renters brings tend to care less about the neighborhood

Nice classist stereotypes right there. Sounds like the local fire department
was not doing their job properly if it simply let your neighbors burn garbage
on their property. One way of ensuring "people care about their neighborhood"
is to enforce sensible rules like preventing garbage fires.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Simple statistics, not class, wealthy people are just as likely to be terrible
neighbors, more people means more chances for terrible neighbors regardless of
class. I've also been a renter numerous times. Nearly no one in a rental
property wants to invest the hundreds of dollars into heavy landscaping when
they could be evicted and most rental property owners won't see a return on
investment so don't do it.

The neighbors I had were terrible neighbors but they were home owners that
were close to my house. The fire department in question literally writes the
rules for fires, despite more than one fire where children were killed in town
they still never had a problem with burning roofing tiles, bonfires large
enough to burn 30 foot trees, etc. While I agree with you that enforcing
sensible rules is a way to make better neighbors it is still more likely that
higher numbers of neighbors leads to higher possibility of poor neighbors.

I've lived in multiple cities in multiple states, nearly all in fairly nice
apartment or shared spaces so I'm definitely not limiting my dislike to poor
areas. I grew up relatively poorer than my area and have been fortunate to get
where I am by a lot of hard work and good luck, I also spend much of my free
time working to help disadvantaged people within my community. So while I can
see how you might have mistook my writing as classiest it was definitely not
intended as such, noise complaints with neighbors are super common, as are
smoke leaking through walls and floors, animals not being properly trained (my
wife was attacked by such a dog), property and shared expenses disputes are
all more likely in shared property. Now much of this can be handled by a good
landlord, however the term slumlord exists for a reason. While this doesn't
bother some people it bothers me a lot.

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benj111
Nit.

"Duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes"

Why not quadplexes? The author also uses 'oneplex'.

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tallanvor
Because fourplex is a common term for that type of dwelling. quadplex is also
acceptable, but less normal.

~~~
benj111
My point was that quadplex would be internally consistent. That then means you
can predict the ones you don't already know, is it tenplex or decaplex for
example?

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tallanvor
Language is often not consistent.

In the US I suspect you would rarely hear either term, although tenplex would
be more likely. A development of that size would more likely to be in the form
of a townhouse, with row house or terraced house being more likely in the UK.

