One of the curiosities of language is that our usage can sometimes inadvertently reveal our underlying beliefs. Consider how condos are often described as if they are conscious actors who perform actions, such as “packing people together.”
One example comes from today’sSeattle P-I: “Now, condominiums are building upward, packing people into to what used to be inexpensive property.” According to this way of writing, it’s the condos, not the owners, that have what we philosophy majors call “agency.”
This is just weird. Admittedly, I don’t get out a lot, but I’ve never seen condos roaming the streets, rounding up suburban residents, and stuffing the poor saps into boxes. I’ve always been under the impression that developers build condos in urban neighborhoods because there are lots of people who want to live in them.
Single family homes, by the way, aren’t given the same treatment in our usage.
You rarely hear about ramblers or cape cods “pushing people apart.” Quite the contrary, it’s just assumed that people like me with house-and-yard setups are exercising free will.
A related linguistic phenomenon is the tick of writing as though something else is packing people together—and the precise subject is almost always hidden and unclear. Here’s an example from a caption in a Pacific Northwest Magazinefeature: “Packing people together creates problems as well as solutions…” More examples of this common usage can be found in the LA Times, here, and from comments in blogs here, here, and here, among many other places. This usage, I think, betrays a subtle but pervasive disregard for certain housing choices.
The common thread among these usages is that people who live in higher densities are assumed not to have exercised free will. Instead, our usage suggests, they are subjects; they are acted on by their dwellings, or perhaps by some other force that’s seldom made explicit.
Now in fairness to common parlance, let’s also admit that public policies affect housing choice. (See this article in the P-I for some examples.) But those policies—zoning, lending standards, freeway building, tax policy, and much more—have strongly favored single-family uses that are segregated from businesses and jobs. Still, it is always people who make choices; buildings don’t do that, not even when policies play favorites.
No larger point here. Just that it would improve the discourse to acknowledge that condos don’t force people to live in them. People choose to live in compact settings, and in greater numbers everyday.
forestsareyourfriends
You wrote:”One of the curiosities of language is that our usage can sometimes inadvertently reveal our underlying beliefs. Consider how condos are often described: as if they are conscious actors who perform actions—actions such as “packing people together.”‘No, but a condo is a physical environment and thus has some say in the way in which people interact and perceive their surroundings. Thats why a city feels different than a suburb, which feels different than the country. Thats why Seattle feels different than Olympia. Stairs make people climb, that doesn’t mean that they have agency, but it means that they dictate how you interact with the space. Churches make you feel different than McDonalds, which makes you feel different than the Mall of America. Places and things have character and are thus actors within events. It has nothing to do with the “curiosities of language” as it does with good architecture. Landscapes have a say in culture. A city, condo, or room are all miniature landscapes.You wrote:”Now this is weird. Admittedly, I don’t get out a lot, but I’ve never seen condos roaming the streets, rounding up suburban residents, and stuffing the poor saps into boxes. I’ve always been under the impression that developers build condos in urban neighborhoods because there are lots of people who want to live in them.”I think your attempt to make a humorous point falls flatly off base. I have never seen condos roaming the streets either, nor has anyone. The statement comes of more condescending than anything. The very real point is that developers are buying inexpensive housing and converting it into expensive housing. Which effectively is getting rid of livable places for the urban poor, who are forced elsewhere. Tell me how that is sustainable? So sure, people aren’t forced to live in condos but people are definitely forced out of those buildings, which turn into them. The question really is who are the lots of people who want to live in the condos and how do they afford them? How do they give back to their community? Do they work in the communities they live in? What is happening to those people forced out? How are they forced out? Its mythical to say that since developers make condos obviously lots of people must want them. Are all the throw away products of this culture because we want them? It’s a question of what do the majority of residents of uban Seattle need? Do they need affordable housing or do they need condos? The stranger puts it in clearer terms,”…most of the units being demolished are affordable to those making between 50 and 60 percent of the median income. When those units are gutted and rebuilt, they sell, on average, for just under $300,000—a price affordable to those making over 120 percent of the median income.”You wrote:”The common thread among these usages is that people who live in higher densities are assumed not have exercised free will. Instead, our usage suggests, they are subjects, acted on by their dwellings (or perhaps by some other force that’s seldom made explicit). According to this way of writing, it’s the condos, not the owners, that have what we philosophy majors call “agency.”‘Everybody does not have free will in terms of where they live. People live where the can afford to. And if you can afford to live wherever you want than those people who can live in condos do. Your article has such an air of smugness and privilege to it. It feels like its saying “how dare you question condos you don’t have to live in them” as if economic forces play little into peoples ability to live in certain areas. You are right people are not “subjects, acted on by their dwellings” but people are subject to the costs of living in certain areas and when an area is totally converted into a yuppie playground for the wealthy the poor lose out. The residents I work with live on 6000 a year do they need condos or affordable housing? Where do they go when all the affordable housing is being converted into spaces they can never afford? Another thing your article fails to even acknowledge (because it is written as if the person is coming from a fairly stable level of wealth) is that the majority of people choose to live in urban settings. People search for work in urban settings. Small percentages of people buy up large tracts of land and people are forced out of the country and into the center of growth to find work. That’s been the characteristic of civilization since its inception. Simply look at the so-called Third World.The debate as I seem to know it is not about people not wanting to live in condos. Its that the majority of working people in Seattle can’t afford to live in them and the places they can afford to live are being converted into things they can’t. What makes it worse is that proportionately there is not enough affordable housing (thus the huge boom and subsequent bust in housing loans).And regardless, the physical nature of condos means people are packed together, as I said before. Now, people can enjoy being packed together or not, but the nature of urban living means people are packed together (thus higher density, it has nothing to do with a linguistic slight of hand). This also has nothing to do with a condo having agency. Environment plays a large role in dictating how one interacts within it, like I said. Frankly your argument is weak and doesn’t make much sense. You are trying to turn something into what its not. The problem again, is not that people are forced into condos but that people are forced out of the places where they go unless they have enough affluence to live in the places with condos.You wrote:”Single family homes, by the way, aren’t given the same treatment in our usage.”They are given a different usage because they are different. A single family home is not a condo. A single family home is not “urban”. Single family homes aren’t designed for density, condos are.You wrote:”Still, it is always people who make choices; buildings don’t do that, not even when policies play favorites.”Again this statement gives no bearing to issues of wealth or economic class. Not all people get too choose where or how to live. Nor do you acknowledge the cultural differences of the city and urban living compared to more rural living.So yes, for a certain (and a relitively small portion) of people it is a matter of choice. But this issue really is not about the choices of the wealthy but the lack there of for the poor. The article cycles a tired and disproven myth that social and economic factors have a limited effect on peoples choices.”No larger point here. Just that it would improve the discourse to acknowledge that condos don’t force people to live in them. People choose to live in compact settings, and in greater numbers everyday.”Really there is no point in the article at all. And your thesis that people choose to live in compact settings out of pure agency completely disregards economic, social, and cultural factors and is surprisingly sloppy thinking from a supposed think tank, which, for the most part does a great job addressing the issues this article disregards.
sf
Seems to me the basic problem is that the economy is creating a high demand for new housing, which inevitable raises prices. If you prevent the construction of high rise condos in one neighborhood or one town, you will just move them to another neighborhood and/or force the new workers to commute much farther. On the other hand, I suspect part of the problem is that money to tear down and rebuild has been too freely available during the housing bubble. A more realistic interest rate with a higher collateral requirement would have slowed down the conversions considerably.
darold_hoisington
Forestsareyourfriends—save your anti-condo drivel for Knute Berger’s site. What’s sloppy is your response: For example, the post points out that there are few, if any, examples of single family homes being credited for “pushing people apart”–meaning that single family homes aren’t usually described in language implying agency. You then say, of course they aren’t described with that language, since they’re not about density. Way to repeat the premise there, buddy. Keep up the good work.You rail at the condos you think are driving up prices and driving out people, when the real culprit is…single family housing! You think if a condo weren’t displacing the middle-income folks, a wealthier homebuyer wouldn’t come in and play the role of gentrifier? What do you think is driving the gentrification of Columbia City? The CD? etc.? Is it condos?Since our city is zoned so that SFH takes up 65% of the land, we have to make room for new arrivals in the few neighborhoods that allow density—hence the displacement and high prices (high demand, low supply—econ 101). Because the few multi-family zoned lands have their value increased by this zoning, anything developed on them is likely to be unaffordable to those of lower incomes. Of course, reactionaries like you would rather take aim at the new and strange—it’s those damn condos’ fault—than look at the root causes of the problem (population growth and poor land-use planning). Go back to your little fantasy land—you know, the one in which Seattle can remain as it was in 1963, where the neighborhoods are all single-family and none of them as dense as your skull.
Clark Williams-Derry
Just to try to throw an element of calm into this discussion (we’re all one big family, remember?) here’s a point that I think gets lost in the housing affordability debate…The problems of housing affordability are closely linked with the much larger and more intractable problem of economic inequality. Since most of us spend more on housing than on anything else, the housing market throws inequality issues into especially stark relief—and that raises lots of people’s passions.So while lots of people blame upscale condos for unaffordability, it seems to me that they’re a symptom rather than a root cause. The underlying causes the inherently limited supply of land near major business centers; include the decades-long growth in income and wealth inequality; and various zoning restrictions (including a preference for single-family housing within Seattle). The latter two are things that need fixing—though the solutions are difficult politically, to say the least.Those forces create supply-demand imbalances that cause real problems for lower- and middle-income folks. But those problems would exist, regardless of whether upscale condos get built. In fact, by stopping new multi-family housing in the city—that is, by restricting the growth in housing supply—housing prices in the city would probably be higher than they already are. People with cash to bid on those downtown condos would bid up city-wide housing prices even higher, or even converting some multi-family or shared/group homes in neighborhoods into dwellings for just one or two people. That’s no better for affordability than the current situation—and possibly worse, since people without means would have even fewer options within the city.
forestsareyourfriends
darold,First, if you are going to address my writing, address my writing and not me. discussion can do without condescending snarky “as dense as your skull” bs.I think you need to go back and read what I wrote and what I was actually addressing.One I wasn’t addressing how I want seattle as it was in 1963 (I wouldn’t know because I wasn’t even alive). I wasn’t even attacking density. I was attacking the lack of affordable housing in urban seattle. But it seems you’ve brought a bunch of your own baggage about it to put all over it. The issue is about prices not about architecture. Single family homes are doing the same thing. You are right. The condo debate isn’t about the fact that they pack people in. They are designed for density, which is fine. Its a city. Density makes sense. Its the fact that they are too expensive for the majority of the residents that need housing. Thats my problem. Thats what I was talking about. DR horton and whomever are putting up too expensive single family homes, and the loan system on that is just as ridiculous. There is no real culprit, its a combination on both. Where did I say density bad non-density good? I don’t care if its a condo, a loft, studio, or single family home just make them affordable to the majority of the people that need housing. Please take knee jerk reactions else where.
forestsareyourfriends
Dear Clark,Thank you for saying more sufficiently what I was trying to get at.
juliasathler
Perhaps we see this usage because there is the very real perception that there are forces trying to “get” people into condos and to “get” them to urbanize. There is the condo-good / single-family-home-bad meme going in sustainability circles. So maybe the author’s choice of words reflects this.This approach is a rather judgmental and ineffective way to deal with the situation, in my view. The thing is already done, however misguided. Better deal with reality as it exists. Single-family homes and all the sewer systems and roads and shopping centers to support them already exist. This is not going to be undone before peak oil hits, just as all cities will not become oases of greenery sufficient for all their inhabitants prior to then.Additionally, I don’t think this meme or belief takes all possibilites for our future into consideration and may not ultimately be the answer to the dual task of surviving the powerdown while trying to preserve our earth as a nice place to live for generations to come.Unless we transform our urban cores into “living cities” post haste, meaning, putting enough food and greenery in there to feed the city’s inhabitants and to allow for their recreational and spiritual needs, and until we figure out how we’re going to make mountains of concrete and steel to keep the city infrastructure going in a post-cheap-energy age, and how we are going to stop the pipes from breaking on very cold winter nights from the 5th floor up in of all the city’s apartment buildings when there is not enough heat to be used; I just don’t quite accept this prevailing wisdom. In the burbs and single-family homes within the city we can bike where we need to when cars become too expensive to operate. We can learn intensive food growing techniques and raise chickens in our very own yards and cooperate with our neighbors to divide labor (and some of us are beginning to organize such things). Yes, if the the outer circles of the urban core hadn’t been built exactly this way it would have been better, but they were. So better to make the most of where we find ourselves. On the other hand, we continually see articles like the one adjacent to this one on Sightline’s website one talking about how high density is going to save the earth. But will it save all of the people currently living on the earth when cheap oil runs out? We are forgetting that there will be a long transition time to sort things out—and we have only just begun.Our best approach may be to do what is actually possible here and now—make your corner of the world as sustainable as possible starting now. If you’re in the city, try to get some food, parks, and greenery flowing out of every city orifice. Lobby to knock down a buildings in every quarter and put parks and ponds and nature in. In the suburbs, try to hook up with your neighbors, grow some food, get biking. Make connections. Re-village. The urban planners’ propensity to push urban living on people is backfiring, in my humble opinion. There is an implied or express judgement against the millions of people who currently choose to live with patches of green around them. This is NOT the way to sell an idea, by the way. In America today, the truth (and we must deal with real, not ideal circumstances) is that the majority of people just don’t want to live in a higly-dense urban area. When energy becomes too expensive to warrant travelling to the city every day for work I think you will see quite the opposite— the urbanization of pockets of suburbs, like villages, rather than people flocking to the inner city to live. Hopefully it will be done well and thoughtfully. I believe it is a more realistic vision of the first steps in the transition that we are going make towards a more sustainable arrangement.
Dan
The urban planners’ propensity to push urban living on people is backfiring, in my humble opinion. There is an implied or express judgement against the millions of people who currently choose to live with patches of green around them. This is NOT the way to sell an idea, by the way. In America today, the truth (and we must deal with real, not ideal circumstances) is that the majority of people just don’t want to live in a higly-dense urban area.When energy becomes too expensive to warrant travelling to the city every day for work I think you will see quite the opposite—the urbanization of pockets of suburbs, like villages, rather than people flocking to the inner city to live. Hopefully it will be done well and thoughtfully. I believe it is a more realistic vision of the first steps in the transition that we are going make towards a more sustainable arrangement. [emphasis added]I generally agree with this entire comment, except for the bolded part I’ll focus on. Planners are trying to densify, not urbanize. Densification makes sense on many levels. Especially when you consider that over the ~9000 years we’ve agrarianized, only the last ~55 years have been spent in isolated big boxes surrounded by lawn [and the satisfaction of the dwellers in these boxes decreases over time (hence the movement to the city by empty-nesters)].The thing to remember is that we don’t have a density problem, we have a design problem; many surveys show that close to half of the population wants to live in a neighborhood where amenities and commercial are close, thereby avoiding jumping into the car for everything. There is also a fraction of the population that reeeeealllllly likes to drive (for the alone time) that will stop if prices get too high. I also agree with Eric that the framing of the issue could be better, but I suspect that the people writing these articles don’t live in Capitol Hill-type neighborhoods in Seattle; rather they live in Edgewood-type McSuburbs. Just a thought.
Eric de Place
Nicely put, Dan. Thanks.