Buried deep in the PI business section a few days ago:
The Commerce Department reported Friday that housing construction rose by 8.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.03 million units. While apartment construction rose by 36 percent, building in the much larger single-family sector of the market fell by 1.7 percent, the 12th consecutive monthly decline, pushing single-family activity down to a 16-year low.
This is another data point showing that a home in the “country” and a huge yard aren’t irreducible demands by Americans, but just another taste that is responsive to economic incentives.
Bad economy or no, the population is in a very pro-transit mood right now. 2008 is the year to go to the ballot.
Builders have simply shifted from single family homes (SFH) to multi-units since the capital markets in SFH are much tougher now. And SFH just aren’t moving right now.
Builders have to keep building for tax reasons. They are just building the cheapest homes they can build and still stay in business.
I think its a far stretch to tie this in to the transit issue.
100% with you on this.
wtf?? SFHs are horrible for transit. It’s really inefficient to serve these areas with transit let alone build monstrosities of P&Rs. Density is way better for transit.
Eh, SFH’s dont have to be horrible for transit. It has to do more with the way the street grid is laid out in newer suburbs vs older in city neighborhoods. North Capitol Hill is all single family homes and no one can argue that that that area is horrible for transit. Quite the opposite actually. Its very well served by transit because the blocks are short and its a very walkable neighborhood.
If the cities that are building houses now actually required grid layouts instead of allowing meandering streets and cul-de-sacs, they would be easier to serve via transit. This would actually cut down on traffic congestion as well since there would be more options to get from point A to point B.
dj- the post and my comments had nothing to do with the merits of density and transit.
I was simply stating my position that economics are responsible for fluctuations in building homes, and cast doubt on the assumption that a shift in SFH construction was a sign that people were moving back into the cities and pining for transit.
I also question the logic that transit is inefficient in rural areas and should not be a part of the overall scheme.
There was a time when we had streetcars to places in the boondocks like Madison Park and (gasp) Green Lake.
brad, if we’re building density, people will buy density – just like when we started building suburbs (not something that was demand-driven at the time) people moved into suburbs.
Changing land use patterns absolutely do demand transportation to match.