A Defense of Multi-Unit Housing

It’s not often that I come upon a tweet that keeps me raging for days, but this one did.

https://twitter.com/lukerosiak/status/1209217111127707648

“Dems Declare War On Suburbs, Seek To Ban Single-Family Housing Neighborhoods As Barrier To ‘Integrated Communities’,” tweeted right-wing journalist Luke Rosiak. “State laws in Oregon and Virginia would override local officials to add high-density housing and public housing in every neighborhood,” he added.

Rosiak then linked to Daily Caller article titled “Democrats Seek to Outlaw Suburban, Single-Family House Zoning, Calling It Racist and Bad for the Environment.” And Rosiak didn’t stop there. He went on and on and on, adding to his original tweet.

‘This could completely change the character of suburban residential life,’ Republican says Dem boosters call wanting to live in quiet, natural settings “modern-day redlining” and want to add duplexes or townhomes in EVERY neighborhood, even multi-acre lots.

Not the duplexes! 

Let’s get two things clear from the outset. First, this is about whether local governments should be allowed to limit what people can do with their own private property. You’d think conservatives, who ostensibly lionize private property ownership and oppose government regulation, would oppose limits on what people do with their own property. But no! In this case, they’re doing they opposite. They want to limit what people can do with their property.

This is about whether someone can build a multi-family unit on property they own, or subdivide a home they own. Currently, zoning laws in many areas prohibit multi-family housing entirely, barring property owners from developing their own property into multi-family units. In other words, this is about conservatives undermining the rights of property owners, which is weird. Or at least, it should be weird. It’s not, really.

More on that in a moment.

The second thing I want to make clear is that I am not here for trashing duplexes. In practice, living in a duplex differs little from living in a single family house—you have your own backyard, no HOA fees, a ground-floor entrance, and no one living above or below you. There’s a shared wall, yes, but if a duplex is well built, that can be barely noticeable.

I should know. I live in a duplex*. When I read Rosiak’s trashing of duplexes aloud to my husband, he laughed and said “living in a duplex is just like living in a single family house, except it’s cheaper.” He’s not wrong. The area where we live is so expensive we couldn’t afford a single family house—and we are solidly middle to upper middle class professionals. But a duplex? A duplex we could afford. Because there are duplexes, we could live here.

When we moved into our duplex, I thought I was picking second best. I’d grown up in a culture where the American Dream was defined by single family home ownership. But you know what? Over the past few years, I’ve concluded that duplexes are where it’s at. And townhouses!

Scarcely a week goes by where I don’t take a moment to sell someone on the virtues of duplexes and townhouses. Living in a duplex or a townhouse is like living in single family house, except cheaper—and in this area, single family houses are simply out of reach for most people.

So I am not here for trashing duplexes.

Let’s return to Rosiak for a moment:

Republicans say putting duplexes in quiet, semi-rural areas would only add to traffic and sprawl, and destroy nature. Democrats aim to spread poverty from the city into the suburbs, and put public housing in every neighborhood, in the name of “equity.”

As Jamelle Bouie put it, “it is always nice to see people take off the mask.” Indeed. We can’t have the poors coming in from the city! That would be a disaster!

Let’s be perfectly clear—removing single-family zoning designations isn’t about spreading poverty. It’s about allowing property owners to develop their property into multi-family units. Because multi-family units are typically more affordable, a larger number of multi-family units gives people with lower incomes more options about where to live. Creating more multi-unit housing would not spread poverty; it would simply mean that people with lower incomes could afford to live in more neighborhoods. It would give them more options.

And that, according to Republicans, is bad. 

The longer I’ve lived in my current home—a duplex—the more I’ve become sold on the virtues of mixed housing. Where I live, there are duplexes, townhouses, condos, apartments, and single family houses, all mixed together. (There are also lots and lots of trees, parks, and small backyards for grilling and gardening, so yes, we do have nature too.) And I absolutely love it.

I realize that Rosiak does not see diversity as a benefit. What he’s trying to sell Americans on is the virtue of residential segregation—by income most primarily, but also by race. He’s betting that Americans don’t want to live by people who are poor, or different from them.

No really—think about it. If you have a neighborhood where every house costs around $500,000, only people who can afford houses that cost $500,000 will live there. People who can afford more house will live elsewhere, as will people who can’t afford that much house. The same is true of every price point and income level. If the housing in an area is homogenous in terms of price point, the population, too, will be homogenous.

Because the housing in the area where I live is mixed, the population is, too. Housing values vary by a factor of five, and I have never lived somewhere this diverse—both economically and racially. At school, my children rub shoulders with children whose families own lake houses for vacationing and children whose families are homeless and doubling up.

I have yet to notice any negative affects of any of this. We know and like our neighbors. We’ve made plenty of good friends in our area; there’s always someone to invite over. We grill out in our backyard. Our children are constantly off playing at the park a few neighborhood blocks away—there are usually other kids there to play with, and if there aren’t, all they have to do is knock on a few doors. In many ways, their childhood feels very 1950s.

I understand what’s going on here: Rosiak and the Republicans he cites are trying to scare suburban voters back into their column. I am here to say that mixed housing does not destroy neighborhood feel. Nor does living around people with diverse incomes. You can have leafy streets and children running up and down the sidewalk to neighbors’ houses or the park and a mixture of multi-unit and single family housing.

“This would be a disaster,” the Claremont Institute‘s Ryan P. Williams wrote on twitter. No. No, it would not. Allowing private property owners to develop their property into multi-unit buildings, thus making housing affordable to a wider range of people, would not be a disaster.

Conservatives claim they are against government regulation—and in favor of a world that gives people more options and otherwise leaves them alone. Isn’t that the point of removing regulation? To give more choice back to the people? More freedom? That’s what this is about.

But then, zoning has often been used to further racist ends. Subdivisions, with their limited entries to ensure that people that didn’t live there would never have any reason to enter them, were developed in the context of intense redlining and racial segregation. Racial covenants and homeowners associations, which also limited what homeowners could do with their own property, were also created initially to keep those people out of the neighborhood.

Promoting the end of single family zoning is going to require a public relations campaign that puts the spotlight on neighborhoods like mine and cuts through the bullshit to separate fact from propaganda. The Republican Party thrives on fear—fear of change, fear of the other.

It’s time to say no to all of that.

* My regular readers will find the fact that I live in a duplex highly amusing, given the title of this blog’s regular open thread. I would only note that I moved into a duplex after naming the open thread in honor of patriarchal author Debi Pearl’s trashing of duplexes, not before.

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