#MissingMiddle — Bluesky Posts

@ratiocity.bsky.social

4 days ago

The housing demand has shifted. Developers are ready. The bottleneck is municipal data that's too scattered to act on. Here's what changes when a city gets it into one place.

www.ratio.city/createto-suc...

#urbanplanning #housing #cityplanning #affordablehousing #urbandesign #missingmiddle #urban

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1000 Friends of Wisconsin

@1000friendswisc.bsky.social

1 week ago

madison for more neighbors logo

Join Madison for More Neighbors at the next Community Conversation on Thursday, March 19, from 3-5 p.m at the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center.

Reserve Your Spot Here: bit.ly/40O56UR

#HousingPolicy #YIGBY #AffordableHousing #UrbanPlanning #MissingMiddle #ADUs #ParkingReform #CommunityDevelopment

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Ratio.City

@ratiocity.bsky.social

2 weeks ago

Friday Trivia time. Can you guess this one?

If you exclude cities with over 1 million people (based on the 2021 census), which two cities have the most data layers on Ratio.City?

Drop your answers in the comments and share your go-to open data websites.

#urbanplanning #cityplanning #missingmiddle

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Ratio.City

@ratiocity.bsky.social

2 weeks ago

Simplifying early-stage massing with updated shadow tools Shadow studies are a critical part of early-stage development analysis but they don’t need to slow your workflow down. In this short walkthrough, we highlight recent updates to Ratio.

Structured, defensible data matters when margins tighten.
Full update: www.linkedin.com/pulse/simpli...

#urbanplanning #cityplanning #missingmiddle #housing #buildcanadahomes

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Lisa Roberts

@lisarobehfx.bsky.social

3 weeks ago

This building with - 8 or 12 or? Units - replaced a story and a half on a corner lot, two blocks from fairly frequent bus route #7 in Halifax. My only complaint: the lot was empty for years before it was built, and now the (completed?) building is still unoccupied. #MissingMiddle

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Ratio.City

@ratiocity.bsky.social

3 weeks ago

In a slower cycle, uncertainty becomes unacceptable.

Projects that move forward need verified data, clear policy references, structured regional constraints, and defensible analysis.
Not approximations. Not fragmented PDFs.

From speed at all costs → to confidence before commitment.

#missingmiddle

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Anthony

@eastsidedads.bsky.social

3 weeks ago

Vancouver residents push back on plan they say will obscure rare mountain view Proposed towers that would obstruct views from Trout Lake put city’s ‘view cones’ policy in spotlight

without the PROTECTED view cones (1 of few for #eastvan of the mountains we nothing more than any other nondescript soulless city around the globe. #vanpoli #vanre #missingmiddle

www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/...

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RDelgado

@resirobi3.bsky.social

1 month ago

Javier Milei: Rein in regulators, not big companies Argentina’s president and Federico Sturzenegger, his deregulation minister, call for a radical rethink on government meddling

Interesting take on regulation. This may be part of a solution to #affordable #housing and #missingmiddle. Create flexibility at neighborhood level to add density and diversity and let residents vote with their feet.

Javier Milei: Rein in regulators, not big companies
economist.com/by-invitatio...

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Ratio.City

@ratiocity.bsky.social

1 month ago

Missing middle is changing fast across Canada.
Turning policy into real projects is still hard.
If you work in planning, development, or housing, take our quick 2-minute survey to understand it better.

👉 us17.list-manage.com/survey?u=1f6...

#canadahousing #missingmiddle #urbanplanning #housing

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Andy

@andydrummond.bsky.social

1 month ago

In theory this is good - for too long what we've had built is either 'executive' 1-2 bedroom flats, or 'executive' detached houses #MissingMiddle

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Andy

@andydrummond.bsky.social

1 month ago

I think there is some movement on this - planning guidance suggesting development near tram/rail stations will be automatically approved?

Now need to work on increasing density #MissingMiddle

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Ratio.City

@ratiocity.bsky.social

1 month ago

Finding Hidden Density in London, Ontario | Ratio.City — Ratio.City Learn how policy layers, transit zones, and zoning data reveal hidden development density in different municipalities. See how Ratio.City simplifies site selection and de-risking.

Read the blog 👉 ratio.city/blog/finding...

#urbanplanning #housing #realestate #proptech #cityplanning #densification #housingcrisis #homes #missingmiddle #zoning #transit

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Chicago Architecture Center

@chiarchitecture.bsky.social

1 month ago

Dr. King understood that housing justice is civil rights work.
Chicago’s missing middle housing efforts show how design and policy can shape opportunity.
https://bit.ly/4qyees7
📸: Getty Images via Smart Cities Dive
#Chicago #architecture #MLK #missingmiddle #allfortheloveofchicago

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Joseph Simons 🍁 🌱

@josephsimons.mstdn.ca.ap.brid.gy

1 month ago

2025: The year Edmonton built the missing middle – Jacob Dawang Edmonton’s zoning reform is working. In 2025, newly legalized eight-home rowhomes drove a record increase in homebuilding, achieved by redeveloping only 0.39% of properties in mature neighbourhoods.

from @jacobdawang.com: "Clearly, there is a huge number of people who would prefer to rent a townhome in a mature, central neighbourhood than be forced into a single-detached home in a new suburb."

#yeg #yegcc #housing #missingmiddle

www.jacobdawang.com/blog/2026/zbr-two-year-r...

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Lyle Solla-Yates

@lyle.cville.online.ap.brid.gy

2 months ago

### Takeaways * A new video by Vancouver-based documentarians About Here explains why the United States and Canada have the fewest elevators among rich countries: elevators here cost three to four times more. * Because elevators make taller buildings pleasant to live in, this is a big barrier to building more walkable, accessible, transit-rich, and age-friendly cities. * Allowing smaller elevators is a key incremental step, but the deeper problem is that our needlessly unique technical standards lock us out of the world’s common elevator market. Phones that refuse standard chargers. Half-strength sunscreen. Ounces. All symptoms of the American tendency to pretend the rest of the world hasn’t already settled on a better way to do things. Now, add another symptom: The fact that you’ve probably never lived in a building with an elevator. The United States has the fewest elevators in the rich world, with Canada only a bit ahead. That’s true even after you adjust for our lower shares of multifamily housing—while also being part of the reason _for_ our lower shares of multifamily housing. The fundamental issue? Elevators in these two countries cost three to four times more to build and to operate than in other rich countries. The result is that unlike in Spain, Austria, Taiwan, or Australia, Americans and Canadians almost never see a residential building with fewer than 50 homes that has an elevator. This restricts elevators, along with the convenience, age-friendliness, and accessibility they bring, to the biggest buildings and the biggest cities. It’s been this way for decades, but nobody has been talking about it. Until now. Inspired by a groundbreaking 2024 report on this subject by the Center for Building in North America, Sightline Institute teamed up with one of Cascadia’s finest YouTubers, Uytae Lee of Vancouver-based About Here, to investigate why, as he puts it, “North America kind of sucks at elevators.” ## How we locked ourselves out of the global elevator market As in his other videos about how to make cities better, Lee packs a lot into 14 minutes. Some of the issue, as he says, is just size. Inch by inch, elevator shafts in the United States and Canada have become 85 percent bigger than the global baseline required to fit at least two people, one of them in a wheelchair: But a bigger share of the problem is that, as with the metric system, the US and its code-writing institutions have been using their own unique set of technical standards for no particular reason except habit. Canadian institutions have, as usual, tagged along with their more populous neighbor. This has continued even as almost every other country in the world has gradually “harmonized” its elevator rules to the similarly reliable but differently calculated standards in Europe. It’s not really our fault that it played out this way. But it’s stranded us on a technological island. The United States and Canada—the countries that first popularized passenger elevators by inventing the skyscraper—now represent less than 5 percent of the world’s new elevator and escalator installations. Few companies bother to play in such a small market with such a big barrier to entry. This, in turn, keeps our prices high, our elevator buildings scarce, and our market small. ## How to get more elevators in our cities and towns North America’s problem isn’t only that its elevators are expensive. It’s also that they’re _so_ expensive that they make multifamily buildings expensive. This makes an especially big difference on smaller parcels, where the only direction to go is up, and in smaller cities, where markets rarely support buildings of 50 or more homes. So, unlike their peers around the world, most North Americans have just learned to live without. In a six-story building, a US elevator and its future operations add something like $310,000 to the upfront cost of a building—roughly the same as an entire extra home that everybody in the building must collectively pay for. (That’s $175,000 for the elevator, shaft, and machinery; $40,000 for hoistway opening protections; and $95,000 for the present value of $7,500 per year in future operating and maintenance costs.) If most people aren’t willing to pay that much, the builder has to forgo the elevator. And because so few people want to live on the fifth or sixth stories of a building without an elevator, that can send the financial math for the entire building into collapse. The math gets especially harsh for the smallest buildings, fewer than 25 homes or so, because America’s high elevator costs must be shared among so few households. So, what can a city, state, or province do to change this? One step would be to allow smaller elevators in smaller buildings—specifically, in the sort of buildings that aren’t currently getting any elevators at all. It’d make sense to use the same standards various states and cities have been adopting for sunlight suites: small-lot apartment buildings of up to six stories and 24 homes. Another step would be to join the international elevator market by harmonizing regional or local codes to the international standard, just as most other countries have. Washington legislators came close to doing this in 2025, but understandably balked at the cost of the code work and training required. (Larger states, or maybe those sharing a border with a country that has already harmonized, might weigh those transition costs differently.) As a half-measure, a government body might formally state its support for _national_ code bodies to finally harmonize with the global system. Though many people see this as inevitable, nothing will happen without effort. Individuals and institutions can help, too. Late last year, a group of accessibility and housing organizations started assembling as the “National Coalition for Elevator Reform” by joining a policy statement about the need for more elevators in the United States. It’s currently collecting logos and signatures. (Sightline’s is one.) If this effort succeeds, it’ll require a lot of people to hear and share the story Lee tells in the video above. Maybe you’d like to be one of the first.

www.sightline.org/2026/01/11/video-fixing-... “elevators here cost three to four times more” #BuildingCode #housing #shortage #inflation #displacement #ElevatorReform #accessibility #MissingMiddle

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🌿 Regenerative Earth 🌿

@fengshuihealing.bsky.social

2 months ago

#Toronto yes, you can too! #missingmiddle #zoningreform

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@denovocities.bsky.social

2 months ago

Do those new Avenues also permit lot consolidation? Without that, most sites will be too small to justify the economics of midrise development. #topoli #urbanism #architecture #toronto #missingmiddle

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Balanced Supply of Housing

@bshnode.bsky.social

4 months ago

For more research on #missingmiddle housing, visit:

📙bsh.ubc.ca/research/moving-forward-...
📘bsh.ubc.ca/research/concerted-actio...

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Homes For Living

@homesforliving.ca

4 months ago

Missing middle in the fall 🍂🍁😍
#missingmiddle #urbanism #housing

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Andy

@andydrummond.bsky.social

4 months ago

All fair comments, but the point stands that we *should* be looking at medium density housing near transport hubs rather than 1-2 bedroom flats and 5 bedroom 'executive' homes, and we obviously *did* have means to do this judging by the 1930s mansion blocks across London #MissingMiddle

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Andy

@andydrummond.bsky.social

4 months ago

I think that’s the same everywhere - European towns and cities are often a bit more compact because many people live in a family-sized flat in a 4-5 story block, sometimes in the city centre.

But these aren’t what the UK builds #MissingMiddle #SuburbanSprawl

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Lyle Solla-Yates

@lyle.cville.online.ap.brid.gy

4 months ago

www.centerforbuilding.org/publication/beyond-zonin... “communities are also finding that simply allowing a fourplex on paper does not guarantee that one will be built” #zoning #MissingMiddle #housing #shortage #BuildingCode

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Lyle Solla-Yates

@lyle.cville.online.ap.brid.gy

4 months ago

Original post on cville.online

"Our code today treats a four-plex the same as a 200-unit apartment building. That doesn’t make sense. It drives up construction costs and discourages the kinds of housing we say we want in Dallas" #Dallas #BuildingCode #housing #MissingMiddle #shortage […]

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Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects

@hillthalisaup.bsky.social

4 months ago

Architecture is certainly work for the patient…but here part of our 1996 design for an ensemble of 18 houses (& a service station!) finally on site.
Pair of courtyard houses, open to sun. Compact & amenable, playful scale,
#missingmiddle
1998 approval had ‘commencement’ as 4 houses built

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Lyle Solla-Yates

@lyle.cville.online.ap.brid.gy

4 months ago

Original post on cville.online

www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/charlottesville-vir... “The city’s updated zoning eliminates single-family zoning and parking space requirements at new developments, moves intended to address the city’s housing affordability crisis.” #cville #housing […]

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Strong Towns Oak Forest

@stoakforest.bsky.social

4 months ago

Oak Forest City Council just voted 3-1 to create an ADU pilot program. We're optimistic this will turn into another big win for the @strongtowns.org movement! This is a great first step, but we need to prove viability for this to become housing policy. #missingmiddle #adu #housing #strongtowns

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East Nashville Urban Design

@urbaneastnash.bsky.social

4 months ago

Homes

I found the #MissingMiddle !
It's at 24th Ave N. & Hyde street.

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NextSTL

@nextstl.com

5 months ago

Be sure to visit St. Louis sometime! #stl #missingmiddle

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Lyle Solla-Yates

@lyle.cville.online.ap.brid.gy

5 months ago

Original post on cville.online

www.vpm.org/news/2025-09-18/richmond... “stick to the master plan and put the necessary zoning in place so that the master plan can become a reality, which is what Richmonders asked us to do” #RVA #housing #zoning #shortage […]

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HousingNowTO

@housingnowto.bsky.social

6 months ago

Sept 12 - [Toronto, ON] Kicking-Off today’s #MissingMiddle Conference 2025 with a full-day of speakers from Industry, Government and Community-Partners… 👷🔑#MMC2025

EVENT - themmc.ca

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