Condos do not have agency

Does anyone choose to live in a condo? 7

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 the Seattle 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 Magazine feature: "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.

Eric de Place is a senior research at Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based sustainability think tank, working on promoting smart policy decisions for the Pacific Northwest. Visit http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score to read more on Sightline’s blog.

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  1. amc89 Posted 4:52 am
    21 Sep 2007

    InterestingDon't see myself ever living in a "house and yard setup", even if I did have the money. Compactness is much more desirable to me. Would be nice to have more space for my pooch, but being yardless just makes me take more walks, which is probably a good thing.

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  2. Kristina & Jason Makansi Posted 6:00 am
    21 Sep 2007

    The problem with condosWhether they (the condos) pack people in or not, they don't seem to have much of a use for people like me. Although St. Louis has been experiencing a downtown "renaissance" with new lofts and condos sprouting up like the weeds in my garden, they are all targeted at people who can live in a two bedroom or who have a minimum of $800k to drop on housing. We'll, we're looking to be packed in. We want to live in an area where we can walk everywhere. But, we've been condo/loft hunting for three years and we've yet to find anything that would fit a family of four with two "work-at-home" adults, two dogs and a grand piano.
    A little creativity for those who are not single, just starting out or are not empty nesters would make me a very happy, high-density, condo/loft dweller.  

    Pearl Street::Jason and Kristina Makansi

    Read Lights Out reviews

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  3. David Roberts's avatar

    David Roberts Posted 6:17 am
    21 Sep 2007

    Yes!Condos for families. Where are they? When we had two kids it just got ridiculously crowded, and there were no easily accessible outdoor facilities to let them burn off energy.
    All you'd need to do is boost the size a bit, utilize the space you do build better (do I need a palatial master bedroom and bath?), and create a condo association that includes events and accommodations for kids as well as adults.
    I'd love to live in or near a dense urban core, but it's hard out there for a family.

    grist.org

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  4. Jon Rynn's avatar

    Jon Rynn Posted 6:36 am
    21 Sep 2007

    We rent a family-sized condo......here in Evanston, Illinois, 1300 sq ft (this is not an advertisement), pretty much affordable -- I think that slowly, maybe even surely, I think if you look at Leinberger's work you will see that the U.S. is moving in that direction.  If I remember correctly, Leinberger believes that 30-40% of the population would like to be in "walkable urbanity", as he puts it, while only 5-10% of the population lives there (and I would bet most of that is in NYC).  He thinks the market must lead, but considering the incentives given to sprawl, I have to believe government can help too.

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  5. Kristina & Jason Makansi Posted 7:14 am
    21 Sep 2007

    Keeping my fingers crossed!I hope the market is moving toward accomodating families, although 1300 sq. ft, 4 people (that need two offices) and two dogs might just possibly work...where do I put the family heirloom...the Steinway Grand?  As for the market leading, I think that's the key on so many of the issues we face today. Even though we live in a fairly dense city neighborhood, we'd like to go to a smaller yard and a smaller space to heat/cool near a coffee shop that serves NY style bagels. So, every condo/loft I look at, I leave my card and tell them to call me when they've got something family friendly! I'm still waiting.

    Pearl Street::Jason and Kristina Makansi

    Read Lights Out reviews

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  6. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 7:27 am
    21 Sep 2007

    My house is only 1200 sq ftThe key is design. It is two stories tall and has a small footprint. We have two kid bedrooms, a master, a guest bedroom, living room, kitchen, dining area, study, and two full bathrooms. It feels spacious and private even with four people (and three chickens). Lots of smallish room, and ah, a coop.

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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  7. Don Chen Posted 10:14 pm
    21 Sep 2007

    Old Habits Die HardEric, that's a great observation. The fact is, loads of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers are flocking to condos, townhouses, and smaller houses on less land because that's the kind of housing they prefer. This is old news in the real estate sector--check out studies by the Nat'l Assn of Realtors, the Nat'l Assn of Homebuilders, the Urban Land Institute, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Robert Charles Lesser & Co. and lots of other institutions that analyze consumer housing preferences.
    The average size of new homes has recently started to decline and condo sales and values are soaring because about one-third of homebuyers prefer compact, walkable development. Despite this, lots of people--including many reporters--think that all Americans still want bigger houses and are allergic to more intimate living arrangements. As Gregg Logan from Robert Charles Lesser & Co. once said, that's "me-search, and not research." For a good presentation on this stuff, see Prof. Chris Nelson's recent PPT

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