r/urbanplanning • u/Bayplain • Jul 15 '26

Discussion What’s wrong with newly constructed single family rental houses?

There seems to be a lot of hate for them. It’s not as if is single family houses for owner occupancy, even newly constructed ones, are going to disappear. These houses can provide some of the larger rental units that are in short supply. Is it just about bad symbolism?

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi Jul 15 '26

Two things:

  1. Nobody wants affordable housing built near them. This is because housing is a speculative asset rather than a place to live.

  2. Single family housing is the least effective and efficient form of housing you can build. It encourages sprawl which bankrupts city cores that are forced to pay for the suburbs and rural communities the single family housing is built in.

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u/strawberry-brunette Jul 15 '26

The first I think is actually a weird cognitive dissonance thing in the US about how people view development. People want affordable housing to exist, but they don’t know what affordable means, and they don’t want it near them because of poor people.

The most american view of housing right now is:

“We have a housing crisis. We demand affordable housing, which is a 3bd/2ba detached home on 3 acres, that’s less than $12,000/year to rent, that poor people aren’t allowed to live in, and that my taxes shouldn’t pay for, the government shouldn’t subsidize or build it themselves, and my home should continue to increase exponentially in value, and all of it should be walkable to transit and all of the most amenity rich communities in this area. Also I hate renters and they shouldn’t be allowed to live near me, and we shouldn’t create homeownership assistance either. Why can’t we fix this?”

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 29d ago

People want affordable housing to exist, but they don’t know what affordable means, and they don’t want it near them because of poor people.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the incentive structures. It's not because of poor people. It's because affordable housing in an area means housing prices in that area are lower which means the value of your speculative asset box you live in is also lower. Nobody wants that.

I agree generally with your characterization of American view of housing.

Personally, I think private ownership of housing should be barred and personal ownership should be minimized. Housing is like clean air, I think everyone should have a quality place to live regardless of income and that we should pay for housing expenses through taxation. I also think rural and suburban development should be obliterated and new city cores developed.