Book: Missing Middle Housing

Missing middle is a great book that illustrates the missing diversity of housing choices in American cities. After World War II, the landscape of how we live, where we live, and what we live in, changed drastically. Masses of people flowed away from city centers and moved to the suburbs. Single family home production and all the supporting auto-centric suburban amenities was booming. People lived on the outskirts of work centers and commuted to work.

This evolved into traffic congestion, pollution, community displacement from highway development, dismantling of rail transit systems, and stringent land use practices. Urban centers have seen a resurgence and density in smaller cities has fueled concerns. New developments attempting to increase density and stabilize housing affordability is met with strong community resistance.

One problem is the polemic nature of what we are developing. On one pole, we build thousands of acres worth of single family residential units. On the other pole, we develop large multi-family properties to increase the rental housing stock. In some cases the large Multi-family developments are directly adjacent to the single family homes. This lack of a scale gradient incenses neighborhood residents.

Missing Middle Housing is the lubricant that eases the visual burden and creates a transition from low density to medium density to high density. Missing middle consists of duplex, courtyard bungalows, quadplex, mansion apartment flats, and live/work units. Missing middle moves units closer together and increases density without increasing the scale of the building form. At street level the building looks similar to a single family home but it contains more than one front door and multiple units. In the live/work organization we have situated society back to living above the store.

Mixed use zoned communities creates small business opportunities on the ground floor while promoting active and walkable communities. These developments bring communities together. Maybe we can get back to the days when neighbors had a direct relationship with the local shopkeeper. In auto mobile centered, low density single family neighborhoods, our retail service providers are typically anonymous figures who work the register.

The issue with missing middle development types is multifaceted. First, large developers will find the investment returns low and boutique developers are hampered by daunting regulatory impediments. Second, communities need to be politely educated about the method and regain trust with developers. Third, cities need to incentivize the construction of missing middle project types. Doing this will help all developers and we will begin to move into a realm where the boutique developments will be critical supporters of larger dense projects.

Action in this realm will strengthen communities, provide increased housing and employment opportunities. The ball has started to role but we need to achieve the same post war productivity levels that brought single family homes to the market at scale.