Surprising Approaches To Achieving Density

[M II A II R II K]

Surprising Approaches To Achieving Density


January 3rd, 2018

By Andrew Price

Read More: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/...ieving-density

In an essay I wrote a while back — "Building Dense Does Not Have to Be Dense" — I compared two directions we can take to achieve density: the Le Corbusier Model (which advocated for large-scale high-rise buildings and wide roads) versus the Provincetown Model (a community with many small homes built close together).

- I prefer the Provincetown style density. In a Strong Towns podcast episode last summer featuring Scott Beyer of the Market Urbanism Report, it was interesting to listen to a similar debate play out, with Chuck Marohn (podcast host) and Scott considering towers, height limits, and economics. — In the podcast, Scott was holding up Brickell in Miami as a model neighborhood to achieve economic prosperity and density. I have no doubt that compared to the surrounding single family homes, Brickell generates incredible tax revenue per acre. My main concern with pursuing the Brickell model is the inflexibility and high cost of entry that comes with building around large towers on huge lots.

- We can criticize the walkability, aesthetics, and safety of building a neighborhood of stroads and towers, but I’m going to focus purely on economics. Building a tower is expensive; the cost of construction is in the hundreds of millions of dollars (goodbye, small developers), and the larger the project, the more expensive it is to adapt or rebuild for the next generation of owners of that parcel of land. — Condominiums can get around the concentration of ownership, but large condominiums pose their own problem; you are locking your city into having this building permanently because they are nearly impossible to redevelop in the future. In most cities, to redevelop a 250 unit condominium, you'd have to purchase all 250 units at market rate.

- I’m not anti-towers, but building up is not the only way to achieve density. Brickell achieves a population density of 27,302 people per square mile. In contrast, Union City, New Jersey has a population density of 51,810 people per square mile (89% higher) without resorting to towers. — Most buildings in Union City are low-rise (two to four stories) plus a handful of midrises, all on on small lots. There are many single family homes, and many small-scale apartment buildings and condominiums with a single digit number of units. The cost of developing one of these buildings is within the range of a mortgage for a middle-class family.

- You can achieve extremely high population densities before having to build up. The 11th arrondissement of Paris houses an astounding 110,000 people per square mile (4x that of Brickell and 2.1x that of Union City) without building up. — The most densely populated zip code in the United States is 10162 in the Upper East Side of Manhattan with 151,835 people per square mile (5.6x that of Brickell and 2.9x that of Union City). Tall buildings make sense at these high densities, but you can tell they started with mid-rise buildings similar to the Union City development pattern, with every few properties redeveloped over the century into taller towers. That’s a much more incremental transition than jumping straight to towers from parking lots and single family homes.

.....

Brickell, Miami: What 27,302 people per square mile looks like at street level







Union City, NJ: What 51,810 people per square mile looks like at street level.







11th Arrondissement, Paris: What 110,000 people per square mile looks like at street level.







Manhattan 10162: What 151,835 people per square mile looks like at street level.

[jd3189]

Well, Brickell is essentially a new expensive condo neighborhood/central business district. It doesn't really have a working class population and its densities will always be relatively low because it's new and it's in America. The other examples are older and have that history of density. And I too prefer the Provincetown type.

[mhays]

One reason it's low is that the towers have setbacks and giant parking podiums. Make those podiums housing instead, plus some additional instead, and the density would be much higher.

Also the units presumably tend to be pretty large. And some are second homes. Also, I assume that some of the suburban-type stuff showing on google maps is still suburban.

[Doady]

The Miami example is the only one with an office building.

Another surprising approach to acheiving density: increasing jobs density.

[mhays]

...and tourism.

An apartment complex will often average 800-1000 sf per person including 1/4 for common areas. Multiply that by 1.4 people or whatever your city's figure is for newish housing in the urban core.

A hotel can easily have double that people density even with 80% occupancy. And they eat at restaurants two or three times per day, visit museums, and wander around all day on your sidewalks. Some go on shopping sprees...one room will represent many of these per year.

Offices average 5 workers per 1,000 nsf, give or take. That's denser than even hotels typically. But they mostly just buy lunch (some percentage do) and go to occasional happy hours etc. Office workers can truly pack sidewalks over a large area at rush hour and lunch, but they don't do much else. They're an ingredient but they don't make a great downtown without a lot of balance from other uses.

[ardecila]

Scott Beyer’s whole point about Brickell in his original article is that, by building tall, Brickell soaked up all the demand for luxury real estate. Because of that, the adjacent Little Havana is not facing serious gentrification pressure.

It’s definitely possible to redevelop our cities into carpets of walkup apartment buildings, but the economics of new development mean that these will all be luxury units, and therefore they will displace the longtime existing residents of those areas.

[llamaorama]

I don't think low rise density is realistic in the US. You'd need to subdivide land into small plots and have lots of independent owners who could all inexplicably get loans to build dense but still low rise buildings. The more likely scenario is one big investor owns multiple acres of land and builds a single planned development and the architects would just make the buildings look artificially unique but they'd all be monolithic whole block structures.

Also from a sociological standpoint, would a Jane Jacobs style urban community just organically appear or would the residents of a compact development be unfriendly types petitioning for security guards and those devices that emit a high pitched tone that bothers teenagers?

Some neighborhoods in Houston have the right amount of demand and lack of zoning resulting in 3-4 story townhomes that fill the whole lot. But they aren't individually developed, investors build entire clumps of identical looking structures at a time around a private alley which may not be sufficient for fire trucks. Meanwhile the public streets are potholed asphalt turning to gravel and still have culverts, creosote utility poles and no sidewalks and that probably won't ever change because there are too many streets to improve. Neighborhood retail is rare, so are parks and green spaces.

[JManc]

The Paris, New York and Union NJ scenarios are pre-WW2...and unless there's some serious changes in how we build cities...not very likely we will ever build like this again and if we do it's to replace or repair historic/ preserved areas like in NY or Paris. The Miami example, given local and state regulations is probably the most likely we will see for high density growth going forward. You can't build buildings right up to the street like you used to in most municipalities.

[M II A II R II K]

You can always build new midrises in new places that takes up a whole block with all kinds of leased retail at ground level, and condo or office space in the floors above it. Since no one really creates brand new individual commercial lots next to each other anymore.

And the parking could go inside or behind the midrises so you can have the midrise retail next to the sidewalk. And since the roads are wide there are plenty of lanes for bike lanes, left turn lanes, separated BRT or LRT in the middle, etc.

And new side streets could be paved where new townhouses can be built where one developer builds all the houses in the neighbourhood and they all look the same in that developers unique architectural style and then sold off individually which means that added density is not just limited to the main thoroughfares.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

I don't think low rise density is realistic in the US. You'd need to subdivide land into small plots and have lots of independent owners who could all inexplicably get loans to build dense but still low rise buildings. The more likely scenario is one big investor owns multiple acres of land and builds a single planned development and the architects would just make the buildings look artificially unique but they'd all be monolithic whole block structures.

Yeah what you need now is about a century of turnover and infill to achieve high density low slung development--like Los Angeles.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

I don't think low rise density is realistic in the US. You'd need to subdivide land into small plots and have lots of independent owners who could all inexplicably get loans to build dense but still low rise buildings.

You mean like this (San Francisco's Richmond District)?:


http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/ric...francisco.html


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmo..._San_Francisco

[Minato Ku]

Originally Posted by Doady

The Miami example is the only one with an office building.

Actually it's also the case on Paris' picture.
The building on the right is an office building.



The 11th arrondissement is also home to 85,155 employes. It's not just residential.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

You mean like this (San Francisco's Richmond District)?:


http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/ric...francisco.html


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmo..._San_Francisco

The market conditions in SF are favorable for that type of setting. The housing costs as well as the prevalent housing type make it conducive to subdivide into tiny lots. I doubt you'd see this in other cities. A few towns and cities in New England and in New Orleans but on a smaller scale and a much lower density.

[dave8721]

For one thing Brickell's density is way over 27k now. It was 27k back in 2010 after a condo crash before most of the newer towers opened and or filled. Also as others have pointed out a decent chunk of Brickell is filled up with office towers, retail centers..etc while the neighborhoods it is being compared to are largely residential. In fact until recently (about 2000) it was almost exclusively a financial district, so its density went from ~5k to ~40k a pretty short time with still lots more development to come so its not like that 27k that is posted is some sort of upper limit of the "Miami-style" of density.

Most importantly though is that Brickell was essentially built where there was formerly just small one story businesses and single family homes/small apartment buildlings. In other words it was basically built from scratch post ~1980. You can't build the other examples from scratch now on a large scale

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by JManc

The market conditions in SF are favorable for that type of setting. The housing costs as well as the prevalent housing type make it conducive to subdivide into tiny lots. I doubt you'd see this in other cities. A few towns and cities in New England and in New Orleans but on a smaller scale and a much lower density.

Many of them are far less prosperous, but the row house neighborhoods of many eastern and some midwestern cities are similar IMHO.

Row houses--Baltimore:


http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/201...s-of-winter/#1

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by JManc

The market conditions in SF are favorable for that type of setting. The housing costs as well as the prevalent housing type make it conducive to subdivide into tiny lots. I doubt you'd see this in other cities. A few towns and cities in New England and in New Orleans but on a smaller scale and a much lower density.

It's also a bit of a historic anomaly. There are plenty of places in the US like this, but hardly any that have been built post-WWII. The only places where landownership is subdivided into lots that small these days are single-family neighborhoods where Euclidean zoning is immediately put in place to lock-down any future densification of that land. In historic city centers, like my hometown of Denver, the norm seems to be consolidation of existing small lots - certainly not further subdivision. In new-urbanist neighborhoods, the lot and building size for mixed-use buildings are MUCH larger than in historic urbanism. Developers and financiers don't seem to be interested in building multi-family or mixed-use structures on that small of a scale right now.

Now that said, it's clear from places like San Francisco that Americans are perfectly happy to live in neighborhoods like this - in fact willing to pay top-dollar to live there - if only we could find a way to finance and build more of them again. I would love to see somebody propose an answer for how to solve this. The only thing I can think of is to start by building townhouses (one of the only small-lot formats that seems to be getting financed and built on a large scale today), and then immediately up-zone them so that they could be redeveloped to a higher density later on.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by mr1138

Now that said, it's clear from places like San Francisco that Americans are perfectly happy to live in neighborhoods like this if only we could find a way to build more of them again. I would love to see somebody propose an answer for how to solve this. The only thing I can think of is to start by building townhouses (one of the only small-lot formats that seems to be getting financed and built on a large scale today), and then immediately up-zone them so that they could be redeveloped to a higher density later on.

What the historically dense but low rise neighborhoods in San Francisco lack that might be unacceptable today is much green open space. The Richmond District lies between 2 massive parks--Golden Gate and the Presidio National Park--but it has almost no internal parks. Today, when they build townhouses, they incorporate walking paths, dog parks, children's play areas and all sorts of other amenities in the neighorhood that reduce density. And I doubt you'll find a developer who would try building without any of that--just houses next to one another (with or without common walls).

As a matter of fact, the same issue reduces the density of tower neighborhoods as well. Vancouver may be a better example than anywhere in the US but the notion often seems to be that if you are going to build residential towers, you have to put them in parks, surrounded by open space and greenery, at least filling most of the rest of the block. Personally, I find this a negative, making for much less walkable cities. Only a few cities--New York, Chicago, San Francisco--commonly put residential towers immediately adjacent to one another with no surrounding open space. But that does make for more walkable neighborhoods as well as more density.

Here's the kind of thing I'm talking about:


http://peakexperienceimagery.squares...anging/4370975

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

What the historically dense but low rise neighborhoods in San Francisco lack that might be unacceptable today is much green open space. The Richmond District lies between 2 massive parks--Golden Gate and the Presidio National Park--but it has almost no internal parks. Today, when they build townhouses, they incorporate walking paths, dog parks, children's play areas and all sorts of other amenities in the neighorhood that reduce density. And I doubt you'll find a developer who would try building without any of that--just houses next to one another (with or without common walls).

As a matter of fact, the same issue reduces the density of tower neighborhoods as well. Vancouver may be a better example than anywhere in the US but the notion often seems to be that if you are going to build residential towers, you have to put them in parks, surrounded by open space and greenery, at least filling most of the rest of the block. Personally, I find this a negative, making for much less walkable cities. Only a few cities--New York, Chicago, San Francisco--commonly put residential towers immediately adjacent to one another with no surrounding open space. But that does make for more walkable neighborhoods as well as more density.

This is indeed an interesting consideration. I despise the concept of "towers in a park" like you describe, and all the empty plaza and setback space seen in places like that photo of Brickell. That, plus leaving space between structures, certainly has to affect density.

I must say though, that I'm not sure that integration of pocket-parks into townhome neighborhoods necessarily has to lower the density of those neighborhoods. I would need to see an analysis like the OP of a new-urbanist style townhome neighborhood before I'd be convinced of that. I actually feel that pocket parks are one of the things where New Urbanism is actually superior to "Old (American) Urbanism." There are plenty of examples from Europe where they achieve much smaller city blocks, breaking them up with things like plazas and pedestrian walkways, and still have very good density - some of the aristocratic areas of West London immediately come to mind as examples of this.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

What the historically dense but low rise neighborhoods in San Francisco lack that might be unacceptable today is much green open space.

that's one thing that a lot of old school chicago neighborhoods do a pretty good job at. like my new neighborhood of Lincoln Square, for example:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9622.../data=!3m1!1e3

there's no 1,000 acre super-park like golden gate park nearby, but there are lots of small-scale neighborhood parks and play-lots scattered all over the place, along with building setbacks on the residential streets to allow for small amounts of personal green space and lovely tree canopies over the streets. and despite all of that extra greenery that makes living in a city neighborhood like this so wonderful, my neighborhood still manages a respectable density of 20,000 ppsm, and that's without a single residential building over 5 floors tall.

people tend to fetishize density on this forum a lot (MORE density is always and intrinsically better), but for me and where i'm at in my life (a family man with two little kids), i love this kind of goldilocks urbanism that chicago has in spades. it's not super intense, but it still allows me to walk to everything i need to while still being really pleasant and green and "neighborhoody".

not too hot. not too cold. it works for me.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that's one thing that a lot of old school chicago neighborhoods do a pretty good job at. like my new neighborhood of Lincoln Square, for example:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9622.../data=!3m1!1e3

there's no 1,000 acre super-park like golden gate park nearby, but there are lots of small-scale neighborhood parks and play-lots scattered all over the place, along with building setbacks on the residential streets to allow for small amounts of personal green space and lovely tree canopies over the streets. and despite all of that extra greenery that makes living in a city neighborhood like this so wonderful, my neighborhood still manages a respectable density of 20,000 ppsm, and that's without a single residential building over 5 floors tall.

people tend to fetishize density on this forum a lot (MORE density is always and intrinsically better), but for me and where i'm at in my life (a family man with two little kids), i love this kind of goldilocks urbanism that chicago has in spades. it's not super intense, but it still allows me to walk to everything i need to while still being really pleasant and green and "neighborhoody".

not too hot. not too cold. it works for me.

^ I think this is kind of what I'm getting at too. I can think of European examples where plenty of small open spaces are integrated into a neighborhood without sacrificing density. I'm not convinced that this is all that much different from American New-Urbanist block patterns.

Granted, that example from London has larger buildings. What I'm proposing in my earlier post is that these neighborhoods should be given zoning that is incrementally higher than the way they are first built. This way, we could achieve small-lot patterns today that could grow into denser, more urban neighborhoods over time - similar to what we now see happening in historic urban neighborhoods that were platted out before WWII.