Walking around in the Stade Olympique neighborhood of Montreal’s outskirts, I saw the perfect opportunity to illustrate how seamlessly medium density buildings can be integrated with classic single family homes (sans the hideous car ports). This picture above shows a row of multi-family buildings abutting one story and short two-story houses that are not unlike the ubiquitous kind of single family housing found throughout Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.
This is the kind of infill that Miami 21 would make possible, in turn creating denser communities in an unobtrusive manner. This also makes it easier to build affordable housing that makes for diverse socioeconomic communities.
What’s that white stuff around the trees? Some kind of new organic tree protection foam or something?
Not to make light…
But yes, this is precisely the type of infill we need throughout the Miami-Dade county area. However I think those homeowners whose property values may be impacted (to the good or bad) may have other things to say about this proposal.
Many, many other things other than infill housing also affect property values. If the homeowner is upset that their property value will rise (i.e. higher property taxes), then to be consistent they should also fight against new/improved parks in their neighborhood that will also raise their property values.
If it’s done right, infill housing should have little to no negative impact on nearby single family home property values.
What’s so great about this density all of you talk about? I don’t want any more people around me! I like my wide open spaces without lots of people bothering me!
I’m sorry to say this, but if you want wide open spaces and few people around to “bother” you, then you should be living on a farm or off the grid in the countryside. You just cannot live IN the city and live a rural/suburban lifestyle simultaneously. Doing such completely renders our cities inefficient.
Think of it like this: If New York City with its’ 8,200,000 people were to suddenly change into a low density land use pattern that you admire, with a relatively suburban average population density of 2,500 people per square mile, it would occupy the entire land area of Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, including most of the far flung uninhabitable areas of the Everglades.
I’m sure you can see how wasteful this type of living is, not to mention how expensive it would be to provide infrastructure to this entire area. Think about the incredible commutes you’d have to make to work, or just to get from one end of town to another. Multiply this effect across the country and you’ve destroyed the environment, bankrupted the economy, paved over a substantial amount of our total land, and created the most unlivable, unsustainable civilization ever.