Missing middle housing
Lack of medium density housing in North America / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Missing middle housing refers to a lack of medium-density housing in the North American context. The term describes an urban planning phenomenon in Canada, the United States, Australia and more recent developments in industrialised and newly industrialising countries due to zoning regulations favoring social and racial separation and car-dependent suburban sprawl.[1]
Medium-density housing is characterized by a range of multi-family or clustered housing types that are still compatible in scale and heights with single-family or transitional neighborhoods.[2] Multi-family housing facilitates walkable neighborhoods possible, affordable housing and provides a response to changing demographics.[3]
Instead of focusing on the number of units in a structure, density can also be increased by building types such as duplexes, rowhouses, and courtyard apartments.
The term "missing middle housing" was introduced by architect Daniel Parolek in 2010.[4][3][5][6]
Many forms of what is now described as "missing middle" housing were built before the 1940s including two-flats in Chicago, rowhouses in Brooklyn, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, two-family homes or "triple-decker" homes in Boston, Worcester, and bungalow courts in California.[7] Post-WWII, housing in the United States trended significantly toward single-family with zoning making it difficult to build walkable medium density housing in many areas and, therefore, reducing the supply of the now "missing" middle.[8][9]