And we will call this: filtering. There is truth in the statement that building houses frees up houses. By that same logic though, what about more houses? I know the US has an involuntary muscle...
And we will call this: Trickle down housing filtering.
There is truth in the statement that building houses frees up houses. By that same logic though, what about more houses?
I know the US has an involuntary muscle spasm when you mention tenement housing but it works y'all.
Social housing and/or tenements just house so many folks for cheap that the barrier to entry lowers.
Very little. All tenements are apartments but not all apartments are tenements, if that makes sense. Though some consider it to be a distinction without difference, I do think there's room...
Very little. All tenements are apartments but not all apartments are tenements, if that makes sense. Though some consider it to be a distinction without difference, I do think there's room specifically for lower-income tenement buildings within the US.
Tenements have historically been lower income housing (social housing for example) while apartments have been for middle to high income people. This holds true in the US where that distinction was made when the country was wholesale reformed into building suburban sprawl in the late 19th century. A smattering of racism was involved in those reforms, but I digress.
Lastly, I said tenements because that's the term I'm more familiar with. You could just as easily transpose tenement with apartments and my comment holds true.
I think the term tenenament is unpopular for the same reason the word plantation is. There's a lot of really terrible baggage associated with it, so even though my Apple Orchard technically is a...
I think the term tenenament is unpopular for the same reason the word plantation is. There's a lot of really terrible baggage associated with it, so even though my Apple Orchard technically is a plantation by definition, I'm probably not going to call it that.
In the US tenement basically means slums and carries connotations of poorly maintained, dangerous, and fire-prone rat traps. If you literally just mean subdividing units for rent we just call...
In the US tenement basically means slums and carries connotations of poorly maintained, dangerous, and fire-prone rat traps.
If you literally just mean subdividing units for rent we just call those apartments, even if they’re studio/efficiencies.
The other relevant format is SRO or “Single Room Occupancy” buildings, which people are most familiar with in the form of college dorms. These are units where people get individual dormitories to sleep in but have shared bathrooms and other common spaces with other residents.
I think this would be more true if luxury housing was either quality construction or well-maintained but 90% of new "luxury" housing is not high quality and it isn't regularly maintained so it...
I think this would be more true if luxury housing was either quality construction or well-maintained but 90% of new "luxury" housing is not high quality and it isn't regularly maintained so it does not age well.
But I suppose there isn't much of a historical precedent for my expectation that poorer people would be able to afford old luxury units while the rich move to newer luxury estates. That almost never happens in the past or today. Instead it's almost like there are two or more different housing markets.
Thats all new housing since the 80s imo Once we started using wood pulp products maintainability just went down the drain. Still, with money and effort, you can maintain anything, and I see plenty...
Thats all new housing since the 80s imo
Once we started using wood pulp products maintainability just went down the drain.
Still, with money and effort, you can maintain anything, and I see plenty of new housing dilapidated and torn down and plenty more of those meticulously maintained and its all based on location.
This isn’t really true, it depends on what kind of maintenance you want to do. If you have drywall and you need to do serious plumbing or electrical work you just cut into the drywall and patch it...
Once we started using wood pulp products maintainability just went down the drain.
This isn’t really true, it depends on what kind of maintenance you want to do. If you have drywall and you need to do serious plumbing or electrical work you just cut into the drywall and patch it or you knock the wall out and then hang another wall up again. If you build everything out of concrete suddenly that job involves heavy equipment.
For a continuously occupied residence with climate control there’s no reason a stick-built building can’t last as long as you want. And it’s much easier to be updated or renovated over time, which is good if you value versatility or flexibility. Plus there’s the fact that you’re like, infinitely less likely to die in a fire in a modern building due to safety standards and modern electrical systems.
Yeah I was debating responding to this as well, but I think it's like ~60% correct? Standard, cheap OSB and standard, cheap drywall are both more susceptible to moisture damage (e.g. molding,...
Yeah I was debating responding to this as well, but I think it's like ~60% correct? Standard, cheap OSB and standard, cheap drywall are both more susceptible to moisture damage (e.g. molding, strength loss through moisture cycling). Plus, the modern desire to have homes which don't freeze during the winter or cook during the summer has driven the usage of insulation, which slows down drying of partially failed (i.e. leaking) building enclosures.
... but it feels overblown to single that out as the root cause of our current problems? I think that it's really easy to point to sheathing materials as "the one reason houses are worse now", but through reading it seems like it's builders not understanding science, legislators not understanding construction, and a general race to the bottom with respect to housing quality.
A lot of the construction techniques which kept older buildings alive for a century+ just aren't applied anymore, both because they cost more, and because we've forgotten old lessons. Large overhangs are discarded because they're "ugly", "decorative" trim which diverted water away from vulnerable wall penetrations is removed, window coverings that provided shade are discarded due to trends changing, foundations have sump pumps installed to squeeze every square foot out of what's effectively a seasonal pond, etc.
So it's hard for me to agree when one points to a single factor and claims "aha, that's why new houses suck!" (other than c______ism, ofc). Simple explanations for complex problems are very compelling, and I'm inclined to believe that a lot of hate directed at specific construction techniques miss the mark.
I think the root of it is that we started treating housing as an investment vehicle and people expected to buy starter houses and trade them up. This created a whole culture around home building...
I think the root of it is that we started treating housing as an investment vehicle and people expected to buy starter houses and trade them up. This created a whole culture around home building and home buying that’s based on how it looks in a real estate listing rather than what it’s like to live in it. It’s far overweights aesthetics and amenities that sound nice on paper but add no value for the people living in it while ignoring things like doors that open and shut quietly.
A lot of those quality of life things are things people learn the hard way when they live in the same place a long time. In cultures where this is still common people tend to put money into their houses over time to steadily improve them, build additions as their families grow, renovate rooms as their needs change, etc. They’ve lived there so they’ve developed an understanding of things like where it gets damp, where the sun hits, where it’s hot, etc. There’s a whole class of particular knowledge that people learn and build around that doesn’t happen when people trade up to bigger houses instead as their families grow or their life situation changes.
Back to maintainability, I didn't mean to try and establish a cause and effect in that statement, I think the wood pulp and drywall products might just be the solution to a civilization of people...
Back to maintainability, I didn't mean to try and establish a cause and effect in that statement, I think the wood pulp and drywall products might just be the solution to a civilization of people who no longer care about maintaining houses, because we no longer have generational family homes.
We have clear cut forests and thousands of 10ft spaced single family homes that all look identical because some time in the 50s I guess people decided they wanted that and so we steadily moved farther away from quality products and actual value and towards 'what looks good on paper because we're going to move in < 5 years anyway and then it'll be someone else's problem' ....just like the rest of our entire society, I guess.
/soapbox
Like, you can keep these houses looking good forever if you keep up with the maintenance, but, if you don't, these houses can't really be "saved" in the same way that a brick house with actual timber foundation can be saved. Mostly, because, why would you want to? There's 100s of others just like it.
This is more a result of nuclear families than anything. Housing that passes through generations tends to have multiple families living in it at once, or boarders who cycle through, and cultural...
This is more a result of nuclear families than anything. Housing that passes through generations tends to have multiple families living in it at once, or boarders who cycle through, and cultural norms where adult children live with their parents.
The 50s was about when big joint family immigrants moved out of cities and into detached suburban housing and the nuclear family norm took hold.
(I've been intruding in your conversation, so I'll dip out, but just wanted to note in writing that I agree with you both in general :3 I'm just a pretty big proponent of clever applications of...
(I've been intruding in your conversation, so I'll dip out, but just wanted to note in writing that I agree with you both in general :3 I'm just a pretty big proponent of clever applications of cheap, plentiful materials to solve big problems, hence my leaping in front of glued wood flakes and paper-faced chalk boards to defend them from criticism 😅)
Constantly building new homes can be an ecological good as standards improve over time. Japan constantly replaces homes, and this lets them avoid many of the issues that Europeans see from...
Constantly building new homes can be an ecological good as standards improve over time. Japan constantly replaces homes, and this lets them avoid many of the issues that Europeans see from outdated buildings.
Replacing homes would be nice, but that's not what they're doing, at least around here. They're clearing entire forests. Areas large enough that I'm positive they're wiping out entire species of...
Replacing homes would be nice, but that's not what they're doing, at least around here. They're clearing entire forests. Areas large enough that I'm positive they're wiping out entire species of something in there.
All that and we're just barely keeping up with housing demand.
And we will call this:
Trickle down housingfiltering.There is truth in the statement that building houses frees up houses. By that same logic though, what about more houses?
I know the US has an involuntary muscle spasm when you mention tenement housing but it works y'all.
Social housing and/or tenements just house so many folks for cheap that the barrier to entry lowers.
What is the difference between tenement housing and the apartment buildings that exist now?
Very little. All tenements are apartments but not all apartments are tenements, if that makes sense. Though some consider it to be a distinction without difference, I do think there's room specifically for lower-income tenement buildings within the US.
Tenements have historically been lower income housing (social housing for example) while apartments have been for middle to high income people. This holds true in the US where that distinction was made when the country was wholesale reformed into building suburban sprawl in the late 19th century. A smattering of racism was involved in those reforms, but I digress.
Lastly, I said tenements because that's the term I'm more familiar with. You could just as easily transpose tenement with apartments and my comment holds true.
I think the term tenenament is unpopular for the same reason the word plantation is. There's a lot of really terrible baggage associated with it, so even though my Apple Orchard technically is a plantation by definition, I'm probably not going to call it that.
In the US tenement basically means slums and carries connotations of poorly maintained, dangerous, and fire-prone rat traps.
If you literally just mean subdividing units for rent we just call those apartments, even if they’re studio/efficiencies.
The other relevant format is SRO or “Single Room Occupancy” buildings, which people are most familiar with in the form of college dorms. These are units where people get individual dormitories to sleep in but have shared bathrooms and other common spaces with other residents.
We previously discussed the same Financial Times article here.
I think this would be more true if luxury housing was either quality construction or well-maintained but 90% of new "luxury" housing is not high quality and it isn't regularly maintained so it does not age well.
But I suppose there isn't much of a historical precedent for my expectation that poorer people would be able to afford old luxury units while the rich move to newer luxury estates. That almost never happens in the past or today. Instead it's almost like there are two or more different housing markets.
Thats all new housing since the 80s imo
Once we started using wood pulp products maintainability just went down the drain.
Still, with money and effort, you can maintain anything, and I see plenty of new housing dilapidated and torn down and plenty more of those meticulously maintained and its all based on location.
This isn’t really true, it depends on what kind of maintenance you want to do. If you have drywall and you need to do serious plumbing or electrical work you just cut into the drywall and patch it or you knock the wall out and then hang another wall up again. If you build everything out of concrete suddenly that job involves heavy equipment.
For a continuously occupied residence with climate control there’s no reason a stick-built building can’t last as long as you want. And it’s much easier to be updated or renovated over time, which is good if you value versatility or flexibility. Plus there’s the fact that you’re like, infinitely less likely to die in a fire in a modern building due to safety standards and modern electrical systems.
Yeah I was debating responding to this as well, but I think it's like ~60% correct? Standard, cheap OSB and standard, cheap drywall are both more susceptible to moisture damage (e.g. molding, strength loss through moisture cycling). Plus, the modern desire to have homes which don't freeze during the winter or cook during the summer has driven the usage of insulation, which slows down drying of partially failed (i.e. leaking) building enclosures.
... but it feels overblown to single that out as the root cause of our current problems? I think that it's really easy to point to sheathing materials as "the one reason houses are worse now", but through reading it seems like it's builders not understanding science, legislators not understanding construction, and a general race to the bottom with respect to housing quality.
A lot of the construction techniques which kept older buildings alive for a century+ just aren't applied anymore, both because they cost more, and because we've forgotten old lessons. Large overhangs are discarded because they're "ugly", "decorative" trim which diverted water away from vulnerable wall penetrations is removed, window coverings that provided shade are discarded due to trends changing, foundations have sump pumps installed to squeeze every square foot out of what's effectively a seasonal pond, etc.
So it's hard for me to agree when one points to a single factor and claims "aha, that's why new houses suck!" (other than c______ism, ofc). Simple explanations for complex problems are very compelling, and I'm inclined to believe that a lot of hate directed at specific construction techniques miss the mark.
I think the root of it is that we started treating housing as an investment vehicle and people expected to buy starter houses and trade them up. This created a whole culture around home building and home buying that’s based on how it looks in a real estate listing rather than what it’s like to live in it. It’s far overweights aesthetics and amenities that sound nice on paper but add no value for the people living in it while ignoring things like doors that open and shut quietly.
A lot of those quality of life things are things people learn the hard way when they live in the same place a long time. In cultures where this is still common people tend to put money into their houses over time to steadily improve them, build additions as their families grow, renovate rooms as their needs change, etc. They’ve lived there so they’ve developed an understanding of things like where it gets damp, where the sun hits, where it’s hot, etc. There’s a whole class of particular knowledge that people learn and build around that doesn’t happen when people trade up to bigger houses instead as their families grow or their life situation changes.
Back to maintainability, I didn't mean to try and establish a cause and effect in that statement, I think the wood pulp and drywall products might just be the solution to a civilization of people who no longer care about maintaining houses, because we no longer have generational family homes.
We have clear cut forests and thousands of 10ft spaced single family homes that all look identical because some time in the 50s I guess people decided they wanted that and so we steadily moved farther away from quality products and actual value and towards 'what looks good on paper because we're going to move in < 5 years anyway and then it'll be someone else's problem' ....just like the rest of our entire society, I guess.
/soapbox
Like, you can keep these houses looking good forever if you keep up with the maintenance, but, if you don't, these houses can't really be "saved" in the same way that a brick house with actual timber foundation can be saved. Mostly, because, why would you want to? There's 100s of others just like it.
This is more a result of nuclear families than anything. Housing that passes through generations tends to have multiple families living in it at once, or boarders who cycle through, and cultural norms where adult children live with their parents.
The 50s was about when big joint family immigrants moved out of cities and into detached suburban housing and the nuclear family norm took hold.
(I've been intruding in your conversation, so I'll dip out, but just wanted to note in writing that I agree with you both in general :3 I'm just a pretty big proponent of clever applications of cheap, plentiful materials to solve big problems, hence my leaping in front of glued wood flakes and paper-faced chalk boards to defend them from criticism 😅)
Constantly building new homes can be an ecological good as standards improve over time. Japan constantly replaces homes, and this lets them avoid many of the issues that Europeans see from outdated buildings.
Replacing homes would be nice, but that's not what they're doing, at least around here. They're clearing entire forests. Areas large enough that I'm positive they're wiping out entire species of something in there.
All that and we're just barely keeping up with housing demand.