Metros where middle-class lives near Downtown? Do they exist?
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I agree. For instance in Upper Queen Anne you have $1.5-3M single family homes, but there are also relatively affordable apartments in older brick walkups nearby with rent under $2k all the way down to Lower Queen Anne and in the same neighborhood schools (8+ out of 10 on Great Schools). These are places within walking and biking distance of the Space Needle in Seattle Center and South Lake Union (Amazon headquarters and biotech). Doesn't feel ghetto either, berms are well landscaped and maintained.
For all the talk about Seattle being very expensive, it has some of the most affordable rents of major West Coast cities relative to income. And the housing stock is overall newer and better too compared to the older East Coast cities.
Can someone explain to me why the West Coast seems to have cheaper rents but way more expensive buying prices than the east?
Also OTR/ Newport KY are really good, affordable middle class neighborhoods right close to Downtown Cincinnati
One factor might be the prevalence of apartments instead of townhouses.
Another might be the prevalence of small apartments. Lots of <300-sf units go up in Seattle, which is related to the ability to build without parking. And "urban (unenclosed) one-bedrooms" are probably the most common layout, again small and easy to build.
A third, related to the others, is our allowance of woodframes up to eight stories, with six wood levels over two concrete ones. That's far cheaper than concrete. Not sure which cities allow this.
Can someone explain to me why the West Coast seems to have cheaper rents but way more expensive buying prices than the east?
I have no idea. Probably the greater construction of microstudios in the west is playing a role (as mhays says) --- lot of techies and hipsters who want to be physically in Seattle or SF but can't afford a full apartment. No disrespect, I was one of them and I'd do it again.
The west also seems more NIMBY in general, I assume as a byproduct of the scenery and the population growth. That seems relevant, although I'm not sure why that would affect home prices more than apartment rents.
Lastly, western cities are somewhat less socioeconomically segregated, since they never really had pervasive industrialization/deindustrialization that left the inner cities primarily poor and destitute. So there's more of a mix of shabby, mediocre apartments in outer-ring suburbs (lowering the median apartment rent) and well-kept homes in the city core (raising the median home price).
None of these explanations really feel satisfying though, I feel like there's some policy-related factor I'm missing here.
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Also OTR/ Newport KY are really good, affordable middle class neighborhoods right close to Downtown Cincinnati
Agreed, Covington too. If I moved to the Cinci area I'd definitely live in one of those three.
Yes. Another vote for Pittsburgh. We are middle-class and live four miles north of Downtown. We could live closer to Downtown if we wanted but choose to live well beneath our means so we are insulated in case one of us loses our jobs.
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Atlanta for sure. Midtown, O4W, and the Highlands surround Downtown Atlanta and are mostly middle to upper class, but more middle class than anything else.
One factor might be the prevalence of apartments instead of townhouses.
Another might be the prevalence of small apartments. Lots of <300-sf units go up in Seattle, which is related to the ability to build without parking. And "urban (unenclosed) one-bedrooms" are probably the most common layout, again small and easy to build.
A third, related to the others, is our allowance of woodframes up to eight stories, with six wood levels over two concrete ones. That's far cheaper than concrete. Not sure which cities allow this.
Baltimore, DC & Philly throw up swaths of 6-8 story wood frames.
Baltimore, DC & Philly throw up swaths of 6-8 story wood frames.
Ours tend to top out at 5 stories outside districts zoned CMX (commercial mixed-use)-3 or higher because the lower three categories (CMX-1, CMX-2, CMX-2.5) have a 38-foot height limit (actually, it may be a little higher in CMX-2.5, a new zoning district introduced with the 2012 zoning code to encourage higher-density building in neighborhood commercial districts).
But our zoning code doesn't even require that the street floor be something other than wood-framed. That's because many of our lots zoned CMX have rowhouse dimensions (17.5-foot frontage on the street).
I did hear someone at a recent Design Advocacy Group forum here praise Philadelphia's zoning code for having explicit mixed-use districts where residential-over-commercial could be built by right (in addition to CMX, we also have residential mixed-use [RMX] districts; the difference between them is that fewer commercial uses are allowed in an RMX zone). The person pointed out that in New York and Washington, buildings of the kind going up in neighborhoods outside Center City would require variances or special exceptions.
Yes, just nothing like on the scale of some Western cities like Seattle.
Yeah, Seattle takes woodframes to a different level.
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