can we talk about how this missing middle diagram - while great - is incomplete and also wrong?

opticos defines missing middle housing as, 'a range of multi-unit or clustered housing types—compatible in scale with detached single-family homes—that help meet the growing demand for walkable urban living.'

the diagram explicitly excludes anything over 3 stories, and even 3 story mixed use buildings that are housing over commercial (as opposed to live-work)

3 story mixed use buildings aren't mid rise. they are definitely low rise. and in older, walkable (mostly pre-zoning) neighborhoods, they definitely are compatible with both detached and 3 and 4 floor apartment buildings. that's a ton of housing in seattle's capitol hill

hell even 3 and 5 story mixed use buildings are compatible - not just with each other, but with single family neighborhoods

further - there is no set definition for midrise building.

the city of toronto? it says 4-11 stories in height are midrise

in germany, they don't really have a mid rise definition. however there are different bauklasse (building classes). the city of vienna (and i think most german bldg codes) state >35m is high rise

the other thing i really love about the viennese building code is that the building classes also have a minimum building height, as well as a max. most of US zoning was underbuilt due to cars, exacerbating sprawl

ASHRAE says 0-3 stories is low rise, 4+ is highrise.

wut

IBC and most adopted codes in the US say anything 75' or greater is high rise due to fire fighting apparatus issues.

and emporis says anything less than 35m (115 feet) is low rise.

confused yet? yeah... but that's not even the thing i think missing middle gets wrong.

this is seattle's prev. iteration of zoning map. that light yellow? used to be single family. it is still single family - but you can build 2 ADUs per lot now. but in effect it is the same thing.

missing middle says that we should only be adding those typologies in the light yellow area, single family.

even most of our multifamily isn't even zoned for multifamily.

in most of city, outside of core, multifamily is constrained to a half block or a whole block deep.

so what it sets up is that we still have 5-7 story buildings backing on to what are effectively 2-3 story detached houses and maybe assorted missing middle buildings.

it isn't really walkable urbanism. is it even urbanism? i would argue no

the problem in most american cities - especially with climate change pushing millions more people into cities (TIL canada is expected to double in population) is that there simply won't be enough room on these narrow strips of land where we allow buildings more than 3 stories

vienna is building 5-6 story buildings three quarters of a mile from new light rail stations.

seattle is building a narrow strip of buildings more than 5 stories next to theirs.

where are these tens of millions going to live?

diversifying all this land for missing middle - instead of massively upzoning for midrise - is effectively locking them in to the same issue we have today. too much land zoned for detached housing in urban areas.

we need to be building thick areas of dense, walkable neighborhoods. it is the only way we be able to meet our climate goals.

doing the opposite? it's not really walkable. it exacerbates housing crunch. it is nearly impossible to adequately get transit to...

we need to be moving away from low rise zoning in most of our cities to have any chance of meeting climate, walkability, transpo goals.

a few more homes in a sea of low rise sprawl won't get us there.

we need a housing/land use shift on a massive scale https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/01/29/housing-action-on-a-truly-massive-scale/

while we're talking about adding a few hundred homes a year (at most) in 85% of the city with 'missing middle' - utrecht, a city half our size - is build a new nearly car-free *neighborhood* on a former brownfield for jobs, parks, schools and 12k homes

https://www.utrecht.nl/fileadmin/uploads/documenten/wonen-en-leven/bouwen/bouwprojecten/merwedekanaalzone/2017-10-Schetsontwerp-Merwedekanaalzone.pdf

vienna is doing the same thing at a massive scale. entire disctricts, largely car-free - with space for jobs, schools, homes, cafes, and open space.

https://www.aspern-seestadt.at/jart/prj3/aspern/data/downloads/masterplan-flugfeld-aspern-gesamt_2017-07-13_1807738.pdf