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Comment by MonkeyMalarky | Hacker News Reader

This is sort of how it's playing out where I live now. The city has opened up densification in an area that has historically been suburbs. Old bungalows from the 50s/60s are being bought out by developers and turned into mini 6-unit condo buildings. So on one hand, densification, yay! On the other, starter homes suitable for young families are being lost and replaced with smaller apartments suitable for young couples, boo? Any potential family looking to buy those properties is completely outbid by the developer. The sale of 6x units covers the purchase price, tear down and new build with a healthy profit margin, the single family never had a chance. It seems like the middle is falling out of the market and developers seek profit in one of 2 ways. Mcmansion that maximize square footage on a single lot, or condos that maximize the number of small-as-possible units in one building. Then the government wonders why the birthrate is decreasing..

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6 families live on that land instead of 1. It’s a net benefit for society. You’re talking as if families are being screwed by developers. What I see is 5 mores families getting a home.

You can’t have a society where everyone owns a single family home of 4000sqf. Infrastructure and public dollar can’t sustain all the roads, aqueduc, transit, for such low density. If some people have the money for it, fine, but we can’t have the whole population of North America living that way. It was always a lie of the American dream.

No one moves to Atherton to be part of the larger society. They go there to escape it.

The American Dream didn't give everyone a 7-bedroom manse. It did give them something they owned. Which now costs like the mansion once did.

The zoning prohibiting the 6-unit housing is in essence limiting the supply to five parties in order to reduce the price to a single party fur buying a bigger home. This is no different than raising taxes and handing the money to people buying single-family homes. The only difference is that the zoning does so indirectly which hides it and makes it politically viable because the masses aren't economically literate enough to understand.

In general, owning in-demand land makes you effectively a mini tax collector.

A culture shift where a 2/3 bed appt is seen as OK for families would help. Ideally there would be parks / exercise opportunities nearby.

"Seen as ok" doesn't change the experience of those living in it.

Suburbia is overrated for families “soccer moms” exist because otherwise the experience for kids is being under house arrest until you get your car.

In denser countries you can take public transit/ walk yourself to places you wont to go long before you get a drivers license.

Living in a 3 bedroom apartment is a luxurious experience in much of the world and preferable to homelessness or extreme precarity, imo. 3 bedrooms doesn't have to mean cramped and miserable, it only means that right now because we don't build enough and landlords in cities frequently split up 1 or 2 bedroom apartments into 3 with architectural slight of hand (or just by lying).

What do you mean by the experience of those living in it? The experience of living in a 3-bedroom apartment in the middle of a walkable and lively city is pretty comfortable.

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