How though? Density sounds good on paper, and has tons of side benefits, but (as the blog post explains) the cost of land + construction jumps significantly.
I know here in the US, there basically is no such thing as "affordable high density condos". High density urban housing is expensive, by definition. So much so that there isn't a single unsubsidized affordable high-density urban housing unit in my entire state.
The only place I'm aware of that has affordable urban housing is Japan. And that's mainly due to a combination of having no meaningful population growth, and having excellent public transit literally everywhere. Two things the US simply can't have in our lifetime
Per person? I don't see how. For a 16-floor building, you can easily fit 120 comfortable condos on a plot of land that would otherwise only fit 2-4 single family homes. Yes, the building cost would definitely be higher, but not per household. On top of that, it would be made of steel and concrete, and not plywood, which generally rots and needs to be torn down every 50 years or so.
> High density urban housing is expensive, by definition.
By definition? I'm not sure about that. There must be some middle ground between glitzy new condo projects and "the projects", which were also high-rise and affordable.
Much of Eastern Europe, lots of Western Europe, former USSR, etc., all have relatively affordable housing.
Here is a source for construction costs for major metropolitan areas in Canada: https://t.co/18FwgkSlWY
And here are some figures.
For Toronto:
House (medium quality): 120-240$/sf
Walk-up low-rise apartment (medium quality): 100-150$/sf
Residential condos (medium quality): 180-240$/sf
Point towers, 40-80 stories (medium quality): 230-310$/sf
For Vancouver
House (medium quality): 165-225$/sf
Walk-up low-rise apartment (medium quality): 155-180$/sf
Residential condos (medium quality): 205-250$/sf
Point towers, 40-80 stories (medium quality): 270-355$/sf
For Montréal
House (medium quality): 125-180$/sf
Walk-up low-rise apartment (medium quality): 100-155$/sf
Residential condos (medium quality): 150-180$/sf
Point towers, 40-80 stories (medium quality): 250-355$/sf
So if you can afford a 400 000$ housing unit, and you assume half of it goes to pay for the land, you could get a house with about 1 500 square feet of space, a similar sized condo in a low-rise, a 1 000 square foot condo in a concrete mid-rise or a 650 square foot condo in an high-rise.
Yes, high-density housing options lower the amount of land per unit, but at the same time, zoning for higher density tends to rise the cost of land. A lot zoned for an high-rise building will be worth many times what a lot zoned for single-family houses is worth even if the two lots are adjacent, since the land value is proportional to the potential revenue of development, so the bigger the development, the higher the potential revenue, the higher the land value.
Why would half of your cost be for land in a high-rise condo? If understand your link correctly, these numbers are construction costs only. My argument always was that value of land is what makes SFHs expensive, not their construction cost.
> A lot zoned for an high-rise building will be worth many times what a lot zoned for single-family houses is worth even if the two lots are adjacent
If a developer buys a plot of land and rezones it for high-rise, they maybe gaining some value from the mere fact of rezoning, sure.
But as a consumer, say in Toronto, if I'm looking for housing right now (and I actually took a brief look at Toronto RE market in the past), available SFHs are as a rule significantly more expensive than condos, especially in the same neighborhoods.
In addition, if you're looking for something not older than 20-30 years, many SFHs force additional extra space on you (an extra bedroom or two) even if you don't need it -- it's very difficult to find a newish SFH with only 2 bedrooms for example.
So yes, in many cases, I'm forced into an apples-to-oranges comparison of a 3-4 bedroom SFH and a 2 bedroom condo, but as a consumer these are the only choices at times.
It really is, in every market I've looked at. /u/kchoze goes into this for Canada, but I'll add numbers for my own area in the Midwest US
-- Suburban House (Poor, Damaged) : ~$80/sqft
-- Suburban House (Average Quality) : ~$100/sqft
-- Suburban House (New Construction) : ~$130+/sqft
-- Suburban Townhouse (New Construction) : ~$130+/sqft
-- Semi-Urban (Gentrifying) Townhouse (New Construction) : ~$170/sqft
-- Urban Condo (Average Quality) : ~$180-$230/sqft
-- Urban Condo (New Construction, Low-Rise) : ~$280+/sqft
-- Urban Condo (New Construction, High-Rise) : ~$290-340+/sqft
It's not uncommon to be able to afford a brand new suburban sprawl home here, but no livable permanent housing in the dense urban area, regardless of age.
> By definition? I'm not sure about that. There must be some middle ground between glitzy new condo projects and "the projects"
I want that to be true, but I've never seen a single instance of this in the real world, and I'm drowning in thousands and thousands of examples where this is not true.
Can you point to any real-world examples in the US?
> "the projects", which were also high-rise and affordable.
They were directly heavily subsidized. No one is arguing that government subsidization doesn't reduce those particular residents cost. But the article assumes governments won't be willing to subsidize housing for middle-class residents.
