The Houses that Can't be Built in America - The Missing Middle

Summary

The video highlights the 'missing middle' housing problem in the US and Canada, where cities are dominated by either sprawling single-family homes or towering high-rise apartments, leaving few mid-sized housing options. This issue stems from post-1940s zoning laws favoring car-centric suburbanization, making it difficult to build walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. The video contrasts this with European cities, which offer diverse housing types, and discusses recent zoning reforms in cities like Minneapolis, Vancouver, and Portland aiming to reintroduce more varied and livable housing options in North America.

Takeaways

• 🏙️ American and Canadian cities typically feature a stark contrast between sprawling suburbs and clusters of towering high-rise buildings.
• 🌆 European cities generally have a more gradual progression of building heights, with more options between single-family homes and high-rises.
• 🏠 In the US and much of Canada, the housing market offers only two main choices: single-family homes or apartments, with little in-between.
• 🚗 The 'missing middle' problem in North America refers to the lack of mid-sized housing options, largely due to car-centric suburbanization policies starting in the 1940s.
• 🛑 Strict zoning laws, especially Euclidean zoning, make it difficult or illegal to build anything other than single-family homes in most US and Canadian cities.
• 🧱 Developers often opt for condo towers due to zoning restrictions and the high cost of obtaining approval, maximizing the use of available residential land.
• 🏘️ Before the 1940s, neighborhoods often featured a mix of housing types, including detached homes, terraced houses, and small apartment buildings.
• 🚶‍♂️ European cities, like those in the Netherlands, offer more housing variety and walkable neighborhoods, allowing for a balance between single-family homes and mid-rise buildings.
• 🔧 Recent efforts in some North American cities, like Minneapolis and Vancouver, aim to address the 'missing middle' by abolishing single-family zoning and allowing for duplexes and triplexes.
• 🏙️ Despite these changes, other regulations such as setbacks, lot coverage rules, and parking requirements still hinder the development of diverse, livable housing options.

Q & A

What is the 'missing middle' in urban planning?

The 'missing middle' refers to the lack of housing options between single-family homes and high-rise apartments in most cities in the US and Canada. This includes types of housing like duplexes, triplexes, and small apartment buildings.

Why is there a stark contrast between American and European city skylines?

In the US and Canada, cities often have low-density single-family homes and then abruptly transition to high-rise towers, due to zoning laws that heavily favor single-family homes. In contrast, European cities tend to have a smoother progression of building heights, with more mid-rise options.

What led to the dominance of single-family homes in the US and Canada?

After the 1940s, cities in the US and Canada started promoting car-centric suburbanization, focusing on detached single-family homes due to strict zoning laws and policies like minimum parking requirements.

How does zoning restrict housing development in the US and Canada?

Zoning laws, particularly Euclidean zoning, often make it illegal to build anything other than single-family homes in many residential areas. This restricts the development of more diverse housing options.

What is the significance of San Jose's housing problem?

San Jose is an extreme example where 94% of the land zoned for residential buildings only permits single-family homes. This is problematic in an area like Silicon Valley, where there is a high demand for diverse housing options.

Why do developers often build high-rise condos in the US and Canada?

Due to zoning restrictions, fighting for approvals and overcoming opposition from local residents (NIMBYs) is expensive. To maximize profit, developers build large condo towers on scarce residential land to accommodate as many residents as possible.

What kind of housing used to be more common before the 1940s in North America?

Before the 1940s, it was common to see a mix of housing types on the same street, including single-family homes, terraced homes, small apartment buildings, and commercial spaces with apartments above them.

How does housing diversity in the Netherlands differ from North America?

In the Netherlands, it's common to see a mix of terraced homes, semi-detached homes, and small apartment buildings within the same neighborhood. This creates more housing choices and supports walkable urban environments, unlike the car-dependent suburbs of North America.

How have some cities in North America started addressing the 'missing middle' issue?

Cities like Minneapolis, Vancouver, and Portland have taken steps to address the 'missing middle' by changing zoning laws to allow duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and cottage courts in previously single-family-only zones.

What challenges remain even with zoning changes in North America?

Although some cities have relaxed zoning laws, other regulations like setbacks, lot coverage rules, and minimum parking requirements still make it difficult to build diverse housing options like townhouses, courtyard buildings, and small apartment blocks.

Outlines

00:00

🏙️ The American Cityscape: Towers vs. Sprawl

This paragraph discusses the typical skyline of American and Canadian cities, characterized by sprawling areas punctuated by tall towers. It contrasts this with European cities, where there is a smoother transition between building heights. The author addresses the misconception that suburban living and high-rise apartments are the only two living options, pointing out the lack of 'in-between' housing. This phenomenon is termed 'the missing middle,' a result of strict post-1940s zoning laws and car-centric urban planning in the US and Canada.

05:04

🚗 How Car-Centric Policies Created a Housing Dilemma

Here, the narrative focuses on how post-1940s suburbanization in the US and Canada led to zoning policies favoring single-family homes. Strict zoning laws, such as Euclidean zoning, and car-centric policies, like minimum parking requirements, have restricted the development of diverse housing types. The paragraph highlights how these constraints have made traditional, walkable neighborhoods rare and how they have created an overwhelming focus on single-family homes. In extreme cases, cities like San Jose allocate nearly all residential land for single-family homes.

🏗️ Why Developers Build Condo Towers: Zoning and Profit

The paragraph explains the economics and politics of real estate development in the US and Canada. Zoning laws and opposition from local residents (NIMBYs) make it expensive and difficult for developers to get approval for anything other than single-family homes. As a result, developers often opt to build high-rise condo towers to maximize profits from scarce residential land. This creates an odd juxtaposition of low-density homes next to towering buildings, especially in expensive cities like Vancouver and Toronto.

🏡 A Look Back: Diverse Housing in the 1920s

This section takes a historical look at housing diversity in Toronto in the 1920s. It showcases how different types of homes, such as detached homes, terraced homes, bungalows, and small apartment blocks, coexisted in the same neighborhood. This diversity of housing types was once common in North America, but is now almost impossible to build due to zoning laws. The paragraph also hints at societal issues such as racial and class-based opposition to housing diversity in contemporary times.

🏘️ European Cities: A Model of Housing Diversity

Focusing on European cities, especially in the Netherlands, this paragraph describes how a mix of terraced homes, small apartment buildings, and semi-detached houses coexist on the same street. This creates a more varied and accessible housing market, offering options for families who don’t want large yards or car-dependent lifestyles. The result is walkable, enjoyable neighborhoods—an ideal that the author frequently praises.

🛠️ The Fight to End Single-Family Zoning

This section addresses how eliminating single-family zoning in the US and Canada could introduce more housing options without eliminating single-family homes altogether. Cities like Minneapolis and Portland have started to make progress by allowing duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes in residential neighborhoods. While these changes are positive, the author points out that other regulations, like setback and parking requirements, still make it challenging to build diverse, dense housing. Undoing these policies is seen as a key to reviving walkable, livable neighborhoods.

Keywords

💡Missing middle

The 'missing middle' refers to the lack of mid-sized housing options, such as duplexes and townhouses, in most U.S. and Canadian cities. This gap results from zoning laws that prioritize single-family homes and large apartment towers, leaving few alternatives in between. The video highlights how this lack of choice contributes to urban sprawl and limits the diversity of housing options.

💡Single-family zoning

Single-family zoning is a policy that restricts land use to single-family homes only, preventing the construction of other types of residential buildings, like duplexes or apartment complexes. The video criticizes this as a major factor behind the housing crisis in North America, limiting the development of walkable neighborhoods and forcing cities into unsustainable urban sprawl.

💡Euclidean zoning

Euclidean zoning refers to traditional zoning practices that separate land into distinct areas based on use, such as residential, commercial, or industrial. This system, named after the Euclid v. Ambler Supreme Court case, is criticized in the video for restricting diverse housing development and promoting car-centric, suburban sprawl by enforcing single-use, low-density residential zones.

💡Car-centric policies

Car-centric policies are urban planning decisions that prioritize cars over other forms of transportation, making cities dependent on automobiles. The video explains that such policies, including minimum parking requirements and wide roads, reinforce urban sprawl and limit the development of walkable, sustainable neighborhoods.

💡Urban sprawl

Urban sprawl is the spread of a city into surrounding areas, characterized by low-density residential development, often requiring cars for transportation. The video highlights how sprawl results from single-family zoning and car-centric planning, contrasting it with the more compact, walkable neighborhoods found in many European cities.

💡NIMBY

'NIMBY' stands for 'Not In My Backyard,' referring to residents who oppose new development, especially affordable housing or mid-rise buildings, in their neighborhoods. The video mentions NIMBYs as a barrier to housing diversity and progress, with people often objecting to any changes that might introduce different types of housing or people of lower socio-economic status.

💡Walkable neighborhoods

Walkable neighborhoods are urban areas designed to allow people to accomplish most daily tasks on foot rather than by car. The video advocates for the return of walkable neighborhoods in North America, arguing they provide more sustainable, enjoyable, and liveable environments compared to car-dependent suburbs.

💡High-rise towers

High-rise towers are tall, densely populated apartment buildings often built in areas where land is scarce and expensive. The video critiques how, in many North American cities, these towers are often the only alternative to single-family homes due to restrictive zoning laws, leading to a stark contrast between low-density suburbs and high-density skyscrapers.

💡Duplexes and triplexes

Duplexes and triplexes are residential buildings that contain two or three separate housing units, respectively. The video points out how these types of buildings were once common in North American cities but are now largely illegal to build due to single-family zoning, reducing housing diversity and contributing to the 'missing middle' problem.

💡Setbacks and lot coverage rules

Setbacks and lot coverage rules are regulations that dictate how far buildings must be from property lines and how much of a lot can be covered by a building. These rules, along with other zoning regulations, make it difficult to build anything other than single-family homes in many areas, further limiting housing diversity and preventing the creation of more compact, sustainable neighborhoods.

Highlights

The skyline in many US and Canadian cities features sprawling areas with sudden clusters of high-rise towers, compared to the smoother progression of building sizes in European cities.

Urban planners identify 'the missing middle' problem, where only two housing options exist in most of the US and Canada: high-rise apartment buildings or single-family homes, with little in between.

Car-dependent suburbanization promoted since the 1940s led to strict zoning laws, making it almost impossible to build anything other than single-family homes in most US and Canadian cities.

Euclidean zoning and policies like minimum parking requirements restrict diverse housing development, contributing to inefficient urban layouts and unaffordable housing.

Single-family homes are mandated by zoning in areas where residential development is permitted, even when demand exists for other types of housing.

San Jose is highlighted as a significant offender, where 94% of the land zoned for housing allows only single-family homes, despite the need for more varied housing options.

Developers often build high-rise condo towers due to the difficulty and cost of obtaining zoning approvals and overcoming opposition from NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) groups.

In contrast to North America, European cities like Amsterdam offer a variety of housing options—terraced homes, semi-detached houses, small apartment buildings, and more, all within the same neighborhoods.

The mix of housing types in Europe creates more walkable, enjoyable, and efficient urban environments, while also providing more choice for families.

The speaker criticizes the lack of legal pathways to build traditional, diverse housing types in US and Canadian cities, arguing for changes in zoning and planning policies.

Cities like Minneapolis, Vancouver, and Portland are beginning to abolish single-family zoning, allowing for duplexes, triplexes, and other middle housing types.

Despite these improvements, other regulations like setbacks, lot coverage rules, and minimum parking requirements still restrict diverse housing development.

US and Canadian cities need to reverse car-centric housing policies to bring back the walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods that were once common before the 1940s.

The 'missing middle' problem has made it difficult for North American cities to provide housing for a variety of socioeconomic levels, leading to extreme differences in urban density.

Ending single-family zoning is the first step toward creating more sustainable, walkable neighborhoods that offer diverse housing options and reduce dependency on cars.

Transcripts

There’s a similar pattern you’ll see in the skyline of cities all over the US and

Canada. The city is sprawling and flat, and then suddenly, a bunch of giant towers.

Here it is in Minneapolis

And in Charlotte

And in Seattle

But compare that to almost any European city, and you get a much smoother progression of

buildings, with lots that are of an “in-between” size.

When I criticize American car-dependent suburbs, there’s a common knee-jerk reaction. Someone

will inevitably claim, “I live in the suburbs because I don’t want to be crammed into

a concrete box in the sky!” As if there’s no alternative between a concrete tower and

car-dependent suburbia with asphalt as far as the eye can see.

Now, you might just dismiss this person as being an ignorant idiot - and to be fair,

they probably are - but there’s a small bit of reality in that statement. Because

in most of the US and much of Canada those are your only two options to live: an apartment,

or a single-family home. There’s almost nothing in-between.

Urban planners have dubbed this “the missing middle” problem. And it affects almost every

city in the US and Canada with very, very, very few exceptions.

As with most things wrong with urban planning in America, this all started in the 1940s,

when cities started promoting car-centric suburbanization, with an emphasis on every

family owning their own detached home.

Now, if single-family homes were built because people wanted single-family homes, and the

market demanded it, that might be OK, but it’s not that simple. Instead, it became

almost impossible to build anything other than single-family homes, because of strict

Euclidean zoning. I’ve referred to this before in my Liveable Neighbourhoods video.

And zoning is not the only problem either. There are other car-centric policies, especially

minimum parking requirements, that reinforce this as well.

All of these requirements severely constrain what can be built. In particular, it makes

it almost impossible to build the traditional walkable neighbourhoods, that are enjoyable,

efficient, sustainable, and financially solvent.

This problem is endemic across the US. If you look at areas of a US city where residential

buildings are permitted, you find that almost all of it only allows for single-family homes.

It’s illegal to build anything else.

The worst offender here is San Jose, where 94% of the land that allows building housing,

only permits building single-family homes. And this is in the heart of “silicon valley”,

where more housing is desperately needed.

Canadian cities are better, but still far too high. Remember what this means is that

developers must build single-family homes in these areas, even if there’s demand for

something else. There’s no other choice.

This ultimately leads to a scarcity in residential land for any other type of building. And even

then, nearby residents can object to almost any development. Which means that every new

development is going to be a fight.

This is a major reason why developers build condo towers so often in the US and Canada.

Because getting zoning approval isn't cheap or easy, and fighting NIMBYs isn’t cheap

or easy either. So a developer is only going to put the effort into jumping through all

of these hoops if they’re sure they can make a profit at the end. That means making

the absolute most of the scarce residential land, and ultimately that means cramming as

many residents in as possible.

Which is why you end up with this insane situation of the lowest-density single-family homes,

next to giant high-rise towers, in the most expensive city in Canada.

But of course, it didn’t used to be this way. Consider this street in Toronto, built

in the 1920s.

Here you can see detached homes of various different sizes. Like this cute blue house.

Or this small bungalow.

There are also several terraced homes, like these.

And this looks like a single house, but it’s several apartments in one building. But it

still fits in very neatly into the neighborhood.

Then there’s this very small apartment block, too. And these small terraced homes that have

clearly seen better days.

And finally, at the end of the street, there’s commercial buildings like this one, within

easy walking distance of residents. And apartments were built over most of the shops as well.

Today, it is nearly impossible to find any place in the US or Canada where all of these

different types of buildings would be legal to build on the same street. Something that

would be completely normal before the 1940s.

But even if you could get the zoning variances to build this small multi-unit building, which

you can’t, the neighbours would absolutely lose their minds. We can’t have people of

marginally lower socio-economic status in our new neighbourhood! And what if their skin

colour was different!? Could you imagine?

So instead, we get a 40-story condo tower down the street.

The situation in Europe is very different. Here in the Netherlands for example, you’ll

very often see mid-rise buildings that are four floors or less, and many terraced homes

as well. It is possible to find single-family homes too, of course, but it’s not the only

type of housing available.

This street in Duivendrecht, an utterly normal city near Amsterdam, has terraced homes, mixed

with semi-detached homes and small apartment buildings, all in the same place.

This provides so much more choice in the housing market, especially for families. Not everybody

wants to maintain a big house with a big yard, and live in a place where you have to drive

to do just about anything.

And it also allows for the type of enjoyable, liveable, walkable urban neighbourhoods that

I’m constantly praising on this channel as being some of the best places in the world

to live ...

You can even live in a concrete box in the sky, that is, if you like that kind of thing.

So, maybe you don’t like these kinds of homes. And that’s OK, they don’t like

you either. But even if you don’t like these kinds of homes, you have to justify why it

is illegal to build these kinds of homes in almost every neighbourhood in the US and Canada.

And of course, eliminating single family zoning doesn’t eliminate single-family homes. These

houses can still be built if there’s demand for it. It just means that they would no longer

be the only type of homes that can be built.

Thankfully, some cities in North America are starting to make some progress with this issue.

In 2019, Minneapolis abolished single family zoning, and now allows building duplexes and

triplexes in any neighborhood in the city.

Vancouver has recently made it possible to build duplexes in all residential neighbourhoods,

though not triplexes.

And even better legislation means that Portland can once again build housing that used to

be considered normal, such as fourplexes, and cottage courts, which are several small

homes around a common yard.

These cites are taking a good step forward, but they are still very much in the minority.

And unfortunately other regulations, such as setbacks, lot coverage rules, or minimum

parking requirements, can still make it difficult to build anything other than single family

homes.

Also, even with these zoning changes these are still far too many dense but liveable

housing options that are not permitted, such as courtyard buildings, townhouses, and small

apartment buildings.

Ultimately, if US and Canadian cities want to succeed, they’re going to have to start

undoing car-centric housing policies, and ending single-family zoning to make the missing

middle legal again is a good first step. And then they can start to bring back the enjoyable

walkable neighbourhoods they used to build … without having to live in a concrete box

in the sky.

I’d like to thank my supporters on Patreon, who pay me to film random people’s houses.

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