By Helen LuiWe constantly hear about the problems with density: tiny shoeboxes in the sky, looming towers and their shadows, traffic congestion, and overcrowding. But despite popular discourse, denser living can actually be good for us and our communities.Density as healthDensity brings public services, transit, parks, and amenities closer together. When we can walk our
Density is bad for ownership. You don’t own the land, you have no control over maintenance costs and end up subjected to huge fees. I’ve been hit 3 years in a row, 7k, 50k, and 16k. I owned a house for 20 years and never had these kinds of costs, the highest was my roof repair and replacing our fence which was 20k total. This was a decently sized property with an in ground swimming pool. To top it off, the bills didn’t even address the maintenance of my own apt. Fuck density, good for the rich, shitty for everyone else.
Not every building was poorly constructed and managed. You’re not the only one to be hit by levies that SUCK. I worked for a strata management firm for years so I do know that some people get hit with some nasty bills. And sometimes the levies are so high that you can’t even sell your unit even if you wanted to. It can ruin people. BUT, that’s not the norm. And it’s a completely separate issue from density as a concept. Most buildings are built well, and when managed properly will only see special levies in line with what you’d expect to maintain roofs and common grounds (they are not meant to cover anything but the common property).
I dunno the status quo of reserving 80% of our major cities for multimillion dollar detached homes seems pretty good for the rich. I think densifying these areas to provide cheaper housing would be better for the “everyone else.”
Relevance?
You don’t have full control, but you have some part in the condo administration. Like some homes are also subject to HOAs.
Cool story bro, but I also know of dozens of anecdotes showing the opposite
Sure, the system that is friendliest to the poor is having infinitely sprawling cities with insanely high infrastructure costs and the lowest economic efficiency possible 👍 the real mystery is why rich people usually the ones fighting in favor of single family zoning 🤔
Because we basically only have SFHs and high rises, this can end up with people having weird perspectives. The cost per square foot of maintenance goes up with building size for high rises, but a 3-6 storey building is much less likely to get hit by those massive costs than a high rise, and you’re more likely to have a say in building operations the fewer other people are involved. Like, if you live in a building with 12-30 units, you can probably get on strata if you want and make those decisions.
Wat
I don’t have $4MM to buy a house, nor do I have $6k/month to rent a house for just me. I don’t think anybody but the rich do. Having density means I can afford to live here. What are you even talking about?