Following Alon's comment on the relationship between household and housing unit sizes in the previous post, I've put together a chart to show the distribution of unit sizes, by bedroom, in a variety of cities and other places, as compared to the distribution of American household sizes (using the most recent ACS data for housing stock):
Only the areas of cities within urban boundaries are shown. Chester County, near Philadelphia, represents a standard suburban pattern of development, while Westport is an affluent New York commuter town.
The idea that cities, outside the island of Manhattan,
suffer from a lack of units large enough to accommodate a family of typical size seems to be disproven, although number of bedrooms is of course only one of numerous factors affecting a family's choice of location. Otherwise, I'll leave comments and interpretations here to others.
San Francisco's housing skews small, too - more than Brooklyn (I thought they'd be similar), but less than Manhattan. It's probably the same artifact of high housing prices I mentioned in the other post: when land is expensive, middle-class families live in apartments with one fewer bedroom than the number of family members (mine did for most of my life growing up), and new housing targets DINK couples.
ReplyDeleteAlon – while that's no doubt true, it also appears Manhattan may have overshot the mark in terms of production of one bedroom apartments and studios, to the extent that combining apartments to create 2 and 3 bedroom spaces now sometimes yields a higher price than the two smaller apartments would have commanded together.
ReplyDeleteOne consequence of Manhattan becoming more appealing for families, I'd think, would be that 1 BRs would become less appealing for DINKs, assuming they are now planning to remain in the city to raise children. Combine that with higher prices driving singles to studios or to other boroughs altogether, and we should see a drop in demand for oversupplied 1 BRs and an increase in demand for 2 BRs and up.
On the Upper East Side, it's already happened. Because the neighborhood is family-friendly and has relatively few hipsters, studios and 1-bedrooms in the neighborhood are surprisingly cheap, while anything larger is unaffordable.
ReplyDeleteGreat thoughts you got there, believe I may possibly try just some of it throughout my daily life.
ReplyDeleteBedroom Apartments
The idea that cities, outside the island of Manhattan, suffer from a lack of units large enough to accommodate a family of typical size seems to be disproven, although number of bedrooms is of course only one of numerous factors affecting a family's choice of location. serviced apartments london
ReplyDelete