Where Did All The Missing Middle Housing Go?
Part One of a new series puts the spotlight on small multi-family housing—and what killed it
Written By Dave Olverson
Planners, urbanists, and housing advocates bemoan the lack of Missing Middle Housing. But what is it? And why is it so vital?
The term “Missing Middle Housing” was coined by architect Daniel Parolek in 2010, and ever since it has steadily gained popularity. At its core, Missing Middle is a response to a severe lack of housing types and options. Close your eyes and picture a home. Did you imagine a free-standing, single-family house? That form has come to dominate popular culture. When we think of people who live in cities, maybe a high-rise or mid-rise apartment building comes to mind.
Across the country large apartment buildings are built, single family homes are built. But it remains rare to see new construction projects with between 5 and 40 units.
The image above contemplates many more types of housing from duplexes to small multiplexes and live-work buildings. There are courtyard buildings and townhouses, triplexes and cottage courts. The Missing Middle types shown in this image are by no means exhaustive, either. There are many possibilities. Yet it is rare to see any of them being built today.
These housing types can be found, though. You just have to look at buildings that were erected decades ago; there used to be much more diversity. Throughout the South, small multi-unit residences were built. That construction stopped in the second half of the twentieth century. What happened?
Euclidean Zoning happened.
Rules were put in place that made these forms illegal. Sometimes they were made explicitly illegal through the establishment of zones where only single-family homes could be put up. In other cases, they were made infeasible.
Some might argue: “So what’s the big deal? People seem happy in single family homes or large apartment buildings.”
That may seem true. But the lack of Missing Middle Housing in southern cities is killing affordability. Look at the density of single family zoning. If only one family is allowed to live on a half-acre parcel of land, their city is going to run out of desirable land quickly. Prices will get bid up and only a select few will be able to afford to live in the most desirable neighborhoods.
Conversely, large apartment buildings are allowed in downtown areas, but these are at a scale that require large institutional developers to build. They are out of reach for the citizen-builders or local developers that want to create housing for their community. These new apartment buildings end up being “too little too late”. There are too few projects in the hands of too few developers and rents remain expensive.
Southern cities, which have developed relatively recently, feel this strain more acutely than older cities elsewhere in the country. Older cities have more Missing Middle Housing that was built a long time ago—before it was made illegal. Meanwhile, Southern cities have more single family home neighborhoods and only in recent years have a few downtown apartment buildings been built. These are big construction projects, so it may appear as though a ton of units are forthcoming, but when new units are concentrated in a few big projects, there still isn’t enough being built. The result: The housing supply in the South is distinctly less diverse.
In the next post from this series, we look at a beloved Durham apartment building and how it would be illegal to build it today.