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I disagree. Subdivisions mean home ownership and spacious surroundings. These buildings represent the race to the bottom.
I remember back in the day they showed the apartment blocs of Eastern Europe as examples of the low quality of life in communist societies. People squeezed together in tiny apartments. Replaceable worker ants. Now Americans are asked to move into buildings just like that and told its “progress”.
A place like Silver Spring with one ugly mega apartment complex next to another is utterly soulless and devoid of any character. Worse than any town made up of suburban subdivisions. In those, people at least know their neighbors, kids can play outside, theres yards for pets, gardens where people grow stuff. Instead you have phony walkability. I say phony because, unlike in say Midtown Manhattan or central Paris where high density makes sense and can be very pleasant, there’s nowhere to walk to of any note and many parts of regular life still require a car. Suburban density is the worst of all worlds.
These apartments/condos aren't homes- they're rent extraction tools and storage containers for worker drones.
My building in NE Seattle looks like the third one.
I understand that Seattle is building these things like no tomorrow, due to the New Urbanist obsession with Density! that's been spreading like wildfire across the country, and the rush for Affordable Housing Now.
I understand that Seattle is building these things like no tomorrow, due to the New Urbanist obsession with Density! that's been spreading like wildfire across the country, and the rush for Affordable Housing Now.
Well, density and affordable housing are both good things, but the long-term economic benefits that they bring will be compromised by cities having to keep on demolishing and rebuilding sites because the construction isn't built to last - unless they financially incentivize developers to do so.
While my company rarely builds woodframe buildings (mostly steel and concrete), I'll defend them once again. At least the ones in Seattle. They're generally far better built than people here think, and they retain their value.
I live in a concrete building because it's quieter and will retain value better long-term. But I also knew that the late-80s six-story woodframe outside my window will be there for many years to come, because the math almost never results in a teardown. That's despite the fact that they could replace it with triple the square footage.
Yes Seattle has been building woodframes like crazy. Much of our zoning is at those heights, typically with a concrete podium for retail, lobby, etc., topped by five floors of wood. I don't have a breakout by unit count, but I'd guess in the range of 80,000 of these units in 30 years within city limits.
They've been key to making good neighborhoods. Many people (not everyone obviously) want to live both close to work and in a vibrant and convenient neighborhood. Often they want to avoid having/using a car. And they have budgets that can only expand so much. So we get woodframe.
While my company rarely builds woodframe buildings (mostly steel and concrete), I'll defend them once again. At least the ones in Seattle. They're generally far better built than people here think, and they retain their value.
I live in a concrete building because it's quieter and will retain value better long-term. But I also knew that the late-80s six-story woodframe outside my window will be there for many years to come, because the math almost never results in a teardown. That's despite the fact that they could replace it with triple the square footage.
Yes Seattle has been building woodframes like crazy. Much of our zoning is at those heights, typically with a concrete podium for retail, lobby, etc., topped by five floors of wood. I don't have a breakout by unit count, but I'd guess in the range of 80,000 of these units in 30 years within city limits.
They've been key to making good neighborhoods. Many people (not everyone obviously) want to live both close to work and in a vibrant and convenient neighborhood. Often they want to avoid having/using a car. And they have budgets that can only expand so much. So we get woodframe.
Seems like almost all newer residential construction is done with stick and chipboard. And I know why- it's fast, cheap, and easy. However, this is the type of construction I would expect in the shantytowns of Johannesburg or Fortaleza, not for middle and upper class residents of the alleged "richest and most powerful nation the world has ever known."
And sometimes when they want to make it look like it wasn't constructed on the cheap, they'll cover it up with brick, aluminum, stucco, or fibre cement. Sometimes they'll even throw on a tile roof for the really high end housing.
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