Good-bye to all this?
From the Washington Post:
History hints that this downturn could change our tastes. Homes built in the 1940s and ’50s, for example, were usually smaller and simpler than large, frilly Victorians that had been in style before the Great Depression and World War II. …
Virginia McAlester: “We are going to have far more small houses and attached houses,” she predicted. The cost of building the roads, sewers and utility lines to serve compact neighborhoods is lower. And soundproofing will become more important to buyers when they’re living closer to their neighbors — and possibly closer to retail and commercial properties. …”
If owners find them unsustainable, some large suburban houses might get turned into multi-family homes, just as many of the large homes of the late 1880s and early 1900s were converted into duplexes once lifestyles grew more spare.
We at the SFU City Program are wondering what kind of courses and lectures are needed today when we want to transform the McMansion and the dead-worm suburb. In other words: what do we do with what we’ve already got?
UPDATE: New homes being built smaller.
Maybe if we stop focusing on building large homes, we can instead shift focus on to building good architecture.
Instead of trying to achieve status by simply owning a large house, I hope people instead try to achieve status by owning good architecture.
I’m much more impressed with someone who owns a 2500 square foot architect designed contemporary home, than with someone who owns a 4500 square foot boring box covered in fake stone, fake columns, and pointless gables.
Smaller homes, better architecture, built in compact, mixed-use, walkable communities with easy access to public transportation. YES PLEASE!
I think the problems are going to not be the houses, which are easy enough to tear down (really,does anyone suggest that a house built in 1996 will last more than 40 years?), but the roads. Those looping, meandering, inefficient suburban roads will present grave difficulty in converting a neighbourhood.
If you want to see an example, compare two Langley suburbs, side by side – Fort Langley, with stright, grid (ish) streets) and Walnut Grove, built since the 80’s. Which one is more usable going forward?
I love the Sightline Institute’s walking map which shows the inherent inefficiencies of the typical suburban streetplan for walking.
If you want to curb people’s desire for bigger houses on large palatial estates, perhaps you should look at how society prizes similar older structures – such as the large heritage houses of Shaughnessy in Vancouver – or even on a smaller scale – the entire West Side of Vancouver. In those areas, the outward perception of large single family houses is maintained, despite the division of the structures into front/back or side-by-side townhouses, or more recently, the EcoDensity push for carriage houses and laneway housing that doesn’t erase the image (or societal status) of large single family housing from the streetfront.
In that respect, City policies and bylaws are simply preserving the desirability of such bigger houses – i.e. preserving “the dream”.
Ron C hit the mark. Look at the suburbs, just foolish planning, no foresight at all with the leadership there.
I have heard the speech before that suburbs that have curviinear streets, some cul-de-sacs, are unwalkable and discourage cycling. But that’s only true if pedestrian laneways are not installed. With those laneways included, thru vehicle traffic is discouraged and/or “calmed” (to borrow an in-vogue term), while pedestrians and cyclists can go about their business unimpeded.
The notion that a rectangular grid is superior is really just a product differentiation gimmick. People who own or promote real estate in older, more central neighborhoods seek to convince potential purchasers that their product is somehow better, and therefore deserving of ever higher prices. The strategy is to talk-up essentially arbitrary differences and promote them as if they represented a genuine quality difference.
It’s an old marketing gimmick, the equivalent of “tail-fins” in the auto industry. Put another way, rectangular or grid street layouts are the “new black”, and have been for some years, since fashion moves more slowly in the housing business.
NB “curviinear” means curvilinear.
I prefer grid streets, it’s not “just a product differentiation gimmick”
I prefer them. I like them more than curvilinear streets, simple as that. There’s no agenda or conspiracy.
“I prefer grid streets, it’s not “just a product differentiation gimmick”
I prefer them. I like them more than curvilinear streets, simple as that. There’s no agenda or conspiracy.”
Tom, a difference that’s arbitrary, a matter of taste or convention, something “I just plain like better” is one of the main identifying features of product differentiation gimmicks.
Your use of the word conspiracy strikes me as a bit strange. Who said anything about a conspiracy?