Working in construction, I think about development a lot. Things like density, traffic, quality of life, and affordability. And my personal interests add concerns about bicycle friendliness, walk-ability, accessibility, with sustainability.
The issue of density has come up a bit lately.
We like our single family homes. Yet it’s not the most stable model. First, supply and demand. By building mostly SFRs, we hold down supply. Demand, in our region, isn’t stable or static, it’s growing. This dynamic will continue to drive prices up. Sure, expect other market forces to put downward pressure on prices, from time to time. But the upward pressure of demand will be there for the foreseeable future. People want/need to live here
The best thing we can do for affordability is develop more multi-family homes. Condos and such. I’m not sure envisioning the Puget Sound basin like Tokyo is the design ascetic I’d shoot for, (nothing against Tokyo) but I’m not considering that. I’m just meditating on market forces.
Consider things like air condos, a way to get the SFR experience with a bit more modest price tag. We compromise on yard, another suburban charm. We value yards, but we can’t have both yards and affordability.
Market forces will drive us to the higher density models. Understanding market dynamics, it’s hard not to envision a line of high rises from Olympia to Everett… eventually. So, I would like us to be thoughtful about how we get there, since reactively following market dynamics does always go elegantly.
