
Science grew out of the mists of time: potions and folk remedies to cure illness gradually analyzed and improved over the centuries, obsession from the middle ages and beyond about ways to transmute ‘base’ metals into glorious gold, centuries of cross-breeding plants and animals to improve them.
The sciences of urban geography and city planning have a slightly shorter history, one still much in the making. Planning theories are proposed after careful observation — ideas that describe reliable, repeatable patterns to explain how citizens interact with the space about them as they live and work.
Some theories have been found to be true: e.g. buses always travel in bunches during rush hour. Others have died embarrassing deaths: e.g the green spaces between high rise towers did not become thriving hubs of social interaction.
The jury is still out on one theory currently bringing hope to the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. The idea is that as housing stock ages, its value declines and becomes eminently suitable for use as affordable housing for a community.
Suitable? That would appear to be true, on the evidence of a retrospective article about apartment building in Charlotte, South Carolina. As the city watches, the stock of past housing booms is aging towards dilapitude. Read more in the Charlotte Observer: Charlotte’s first big apartment boom was in 1972. Here’s what it looked like.
As the article explains, the city is planning to invest a considerable sum to purchase and renovate older apartments to create badly needed affordable housing. With modest upgrades and renovations, the city sees units that are suitable for affordable housing,
Suitable, yes. But available? That’s not quite so certain. The free housing market can, and does, gobble up older housing in the blink of an eye. Whether for high end renovation or new housing, free market initiative can scupper fond hopes for affordable housing based on aging stock. It may take nimble footed city councils wielding measures such as eminent domain to foil the endless onslaught of the free market.