Politics Sinful Analysis
posted by on April 25 at 12:31 PM
I have tried and tried (without much real success) to describe the strange political hybrid—call it reactionary populism or pseudo populism—that festers in Seattle’s old-school Left, now circling the wagons in the vestiges of the “Neighborhood Movement.”
These are the folks whose knee-jerk reaction to every attempt at smart density policy is to dismiss those policies (increased heights, lowered parking requirements, surface/transit on the waterfront) as “Elitist” or “Corporate Liberalism.”
It’s an ugly transition from Left to Reactionary Populism. (When discussing international politics, Christopher Hitchens has a better term for the phenomenon. He calls the strain, Reactionary Utopianism.)
Anyway, below the jump, I’ve linked a shot I took at describing this phenomenon back in May 2005.
Way better, though, linked right here, The Seattle Sinner has an editorial in their April issue that criticizes the convoluted equation of Seattle’s own Reactionary Utopianists. Appropriately enough, the Sinner uses the recent battle over the Viaduct as its metaphor and jumping off point, correctly criticizing the anti-surface/transit folks as “paralyzed.”
Here’s the heart of the editorial, by Jeremy M. Barker:
The historical causes of our current situation are pretty simple: it’s the continued struggle between Seattle’s old guard, blue collar population and the younger, urbanite population that’s been transforming the city since the tech boom of the 1990s. The old guard was behind what used to be known as Seattle’s “neighborhood movement,” where neighborhood activists came to wield substantial power over city planning. A lot of people embraced the neighborhood movement as a sign of intelligent growth: neighborhoods were helping ensure a higher quality of life, reinvigorating civic participation and serving as a bulwark against heartless redevelopment.But that was a mistaken impression. The neighborhood groups also represented the status quo, consolidating power in older, richer, more established neighborhoods fighting to keep a disproportionately big share of the pie. The neighborhood movements, in other words, were pretty happy with they way things were; they were political reactionaries fighting against progress. They helped scuttle Seattle Commons, Paul Allen’s ambitious civic project for SLU. They made nice with homeless advocacy groups to give their greed for city money the veneer of progressive politics. Organizations like the Seattle Displacement Coalition and the hobo newspaper Real Change took to advocating strange positions: Real Change used to give disproportionate article space to Magnolia residents opposing a tunnel, and the Seattle Displacement Coalition’s John Fox became a point man for criticizing the city’s redevelopment priorities, opposing things like streetcar service between downtown and SLU.
And here's an excerpt from a piece that Erica C. Barnett and I wrote back in 2005.
We haven't lived in the Seattle area all our lives, but we (unlike Berger) live and vote here. And we do remember the legacy of the once-dominant neighborhood movement: It succeeded in thwarting light rail twice (in 1968 and 1995); killing the Commons, a massive public park proposed for South Lake Union; and nearly undoing eight years of efforts to build the monorail. And by clinging to the neighborhood movement's legacy of exclusive single-family neighborhoods (which compose an astonishing 75 percent of Seattle's residential landscape), neighborhood groups like the Seattle Community Council Federation are defying the law of supply and demand. Increase the supply of housing (by building more multi-family buildings) and you decrease its average cost. Let the supply of housing stagnate (by preserving the single-family status quo) and demand will outpace supply. Which could help explain why Seattle's median housing price, at $359,000, is so high.Fortunately, Berger is right on another point: The old anti-growth, anti-mass transit neighborhood movement is dying. But that doesn't mean neighborhood voices are dying. It's just that the new neighborhood voices aren't saying what Berger wants to hear. Recently, Roosevelt residents provided crucial support for Sound Transit's proposal to run light rail through the heart of their neighborhood, rather than along its periphery-guaranteeing dense redevelopment in a mostly single-family area. And Central Area and Beacon Hill residents support the Southeast Seattle Action Agenda, a neighborhood plan that calls for more density in their single-family zones.
"Density freaks" have a vision for Seattle: a more balanced mix of multi-family and single-family zoning, rapid transit that connects the neighborhoods and gets people out of their cars, and a lively downtown where people can live, work, and party. This is the right direction for Seattle. Berger's vision-a Seattle of expensive single-family neighborhoods, no mass-transit options, and a dead urban core-is the wrong one.
Berger's vision might be right for Kirkland, though. Maybe he should try peddling it there. His fellow suburbanites might agree with him.
There doesn't have to be a divide between pro-density groups dominated by more recent urban arrivals, and neighborhood groups dominated by long-time residents.
I was born in Seattle in 1969, and I've lived either in the city or in suburban or rural Western Washington since. I can appreciate both those who want to preserve some of the Old Seattle and those who want to encourage density. It's possible to do both.
Take Seattle's abundance of single-family housing. That asset should not just be pushed aside in the rush to density, because it's a rare thing and a thriving city needs a mix of housing types and a mix of people from all economic backgrounds. Seattle's not making any more land, so the city proper is not going to build much if any new single-family housing, ever. So we should protect as much of it as we can. I would like to see zoning that focused new multi-use development into low-density retail areas, undeveloped lots (or parking lots), and properties that have been vacant and decaying for years. I also think it makes sense to encourage properties immediately on both sides of present or future rail lines to convert to denser development over time.
That leaves a lot of room for dense development, while also preserving the existing single-family neighborhoods that work. Roosevelt, Beacon Hill, and the Central Area are good examples of neighborhoods that can preserve most of their single-family housing while adding a whole lot of density to replace bad retail development, and undeveloped or underdeveloped lots.
There's no reason to exclude the suburbs, either. The Stranger might not notice, but the close-in suburbs are all adding density, in many cases faster than Seattle. They have far more opportunities to add multi-use developments, and the residents of places like Kirkland, Redmond, Kenmore, Bothell, and Woodinville are supporting projects to do just that. Some, like Kirkland and Redmond, have already added a lot of dense development, whereas the others all have extensive plans to introduce density by completing transforming their "downtown" areas. Neighorhood activists in these suburban areas typically are the biggest supporters of density, with relatively few cranks who want to keep things the way they are.
This brings to mind a great passage from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's speech Sunday in which he introduced his ambitious plans for improving New York, among them congestion pricing for driving into Manhattan:
And here's how a New York Times writer elaborated on that passage:
Hard not to contrast New York's history and New York's mayor and New York's way of doing things with Seattle's history and Seattle's mayor and "the Seattle way" and come away feeling woefully inadequate.
Auto-generated response from lesser Seattleite: Hey, if you don't like Seattle just the way it is, take your whiney ass and your elitist world-class-city ambitions and move somewhere else.
#2: How can you reconcile your comments about New York's process compared to Seattle with your attacks on the idea of congestion pricing in Seattle as the moral equivalent of the Nader candidacy? If the Joel Connelly's of the world are part of the problem, why use their predictable opposition to change as a reason to shoot down proposals for change?
Understanding the other side, Josh, starts with taking a step away from your bubble and your own prejudices and looking objectively at your own platform, to see if it is in fact, by society's standards, smart and agreeable.
Without going into details, the common policies of 'smart growth' to me seems narrow minded, sometimes disconnected from reality, and at points restrictive towards society.
I still can't believe these dimwits killed The Commons.
Fuck yo' commons!
The monorail was the one I wanted. That was these people and the monorail board being complete dipshit ass-face losers.
Gee, maybe because it's because we (and that includes lots of people who were around during the Comprehensive Planning/Neighborhood Plan processes) think unfettered growth that literally drives longtime residents, the working poor, artists and musicians, the middle class, and entire communities of color out to the suburbs isn't so smart.
New Urbanism/Smart Growth is simply trickle-down Reagonomics with a veneer of environmentalism sloppily glued on top, with a healthy dose of self-righteous elitism thrown in for good measure.
I still can't believe these dimwits killed The Commons.
A project benefiting rich people, driving service businesses out of town, got shot down by... the rich?
If it were not for the old guard neighborhood movement obstructionist-ism and phony populism posturing Nick Licata like minders around here. Seattle would long ago have had a viable light rail or rapid transit system in place and the Commons would of been a marvelous park and open space in the center of town to mention just two major civic projects killed by these types.
Not to mention the numerous other modern infrastructural updates sidetracked by politically correct feel good concerns about such time wasting things as saving the circus animals and creating a better home under the viaduct for the homeless and numerous other pretentious bullshit PC phyco-babbling life blood suckng boat load of feel good elitist crap that the voters continue to put up with here year after year.
You get exactly what you deserve by continuing to support several of these loser politicians on your city council.
Whew!
Your piece reinforced my long held feeling about the lack of hardly any really practical or progressive ideas among the city's political elite in years. There's a certain phoniness about the whole political scene here that block anything substantive from really getting done.
More and more people are flocking to Seattle - why? Because it's a fabulous place to live... it’s nice medium sized city with plenty to do and plenty of jobs, surrounded by beautiful landscapes in any direction you look, and filled with a collective desire to be a community, with neighborhoods you can feel safe in, and people whose lives you become a part of. How could you NOT want to live here?
But it is starting to feel like the people who have migrated here are starting to forget those very reasons they came in the first place. It feels like as more and more "transplants" arrive, there is a demand that room be made for them – there is a demand to change this beautiful city to address their needs, rather than just adapting, or moving to a city that already addresses them. Please don't misunderstand - I'm not saying don't move here... I'm just saying please don't build condos everywhere, destroying these single family home neighborhoods, forcing my hometown MEDIUM city into becoming a huge metropolis.
What's so wrong with wanting a single-family house with a nice big yard and a fence for my dog to run around in (and poo without having to chase after him with a little baggie in my hand)? What's wrong with wanting to hang out outside on my own lawn, maybe gardening, or grilling a veggieburger, creating an opportunity for my neighbors to see me outside and come join me? What's so wrong with wanting a place to call home that fits my personality rather than that of my developer?
With everything being "redeveloped", Seattle is beginning to lose the uniqueness that makes it so wonderful. Pretty soon it won’t be Seattle anymore… it’ll just be another big city. Once that happens, people will find a new place to take over – some other “perfect” little city to move to and morph into whatever it is they think they’re trying to achieve.
Yes we need more room for people, and yes a public transit system that works well is an absolute must… but dammit, do you have to “redevelop” everything about my city? It’s already ideal to me – and you chose to come here, which means it obviously appeals to you… so why do you insist on changing the very things that are so appealing? To make room for more newcomers so they can change it even more?
And people wonder why we natural Seattleites give transplants the “freeze”…
@5, @6 - Word!
That said, given that our population will increase by 250,000 people by 2025, it's time to start building 100 story inexpensive residential rental apartment buildings surrounded by greenspace near transit lines, or you'll all become NIMBYers.
You guys have no case to criticize resistance to upzoning single-family neighborhoods if you don’t support building up the areas that are already zoned for 6 story buildings. Even if your favorite bar happens to be there.
Or is it not “smart density” if you happen to like what’s there now?
Interesting piece. But I think the divide surfaced long before The Commons.
I'm no historian, but I think it's possible that this reactionary populist way of thinking blossomed as a mutation of truly positive and enlightened neighborhood or popular exercises of power. For example, defeating the RH Thompson Expressway, and Saving the Market. Perhaps through those efforts, people got used to the assumption that Big Projects and Big Development sponsored by government or the Powers That Be were bound to be anti-environment, anti-neighborhood, anti-working people. That assumption was behind the CAP initiative (1985?) and is alive today (Commons; Viaduct). In short, if someone might make a buck, it's gotta be bad.
This is quite different from the classic NIMBYism of the sort that has helped to keep, say, Broadmoor (No! to the bike trail connecting Madison Park and Arboretum), Laurelhurst (No! to senior housing at the Battelle site or Sacred Heart Villa, and No! to helicopters for emergency medical care at Childrens Hospital or anything else Childrens proposes), and View Ridge (No! to low-income housing or lighted athletic fields at Sand Point) the slow-to-change enclaves that they are.
Lynnae @10--what's wrong with needing your space? After all, land is an unlimited resource, right? Because if you get to keep your lawn, people will stop moving here, right?
I'm from Seattle, too, and am ashamed of our backwards nimbyism. Blame it on the transplants, right?! They're the only ones pushing this policy.
And Mr. X, what would you propose as a better method than increasing density? Allowing the wealthy to buy out our central neighborhoods, without increasing supply, thus pushing the poor another few suburbs out? The wealthy are going to live where they want, anyway--seems like it makes sense to have increased density (and thus increased supply) to try to keep costs down, affordable housing taxes on max development along with unit requirements within neighborhoods, etc. and to minimize car use and maximize the public transportation that will allow the working poor to get around more easily. You argue as though the market wouldn't exist without new urbanist policies. Take your head out of the sand.
@14,
Thank you. I'm sick of the argument that people will magically stop moving here, thus not increasing demand for housing, if we just stop new development.
And Lynnae @10,
The problem with wanting your single family home + yard is that in many neighborhoods (and in all Seattle neighborhoods very soon) those houses will be unaffordable to all but the very wealthy. Condos are actually somewhat affordable to the middle class, even if many would rather move to the suburbs to get that house and yard.
I am also from Seattle (and my parents, and their parents). In fact, I am a direct decendant of John Noble Wallingford who has a neighborhood named after him in the city, so don't play the "transplants" game with me, Lynnae!! Nothing in the world stays the same, your comment is the very definition of conservative (in philsophy, not politics). Why shouldn't Seattle have stayed the same as it was 10 years ago? or one hundred?
People are comming whether you like it or not?!Why should everyone have to move out to the sticks so you and Mr. X can have yards? Population growth in the nation drives up prices, not building and construction!
You need to accept change and either try to construct a city that has places for artists, musicians, and the like (last I checked, Mr. X, four times as dense San Francisco had more people of "color", musicians and artists per capita than Seattle), or be destructive wishing for the "old days" so that that only the wealth that can afford $600K single family homes can live in.
Or you could just do what I mentioned, add the 100-story inexpensive residential apartment buildings, and keep the single-family areas ...
Note I did not say condos.
And by inexpensive, I don't mean family with $50,000 a year income, I mean singles with $15,000 a year income or family with $30,000 a year income.
But you need the parks for the kids to play in too.
@9: Neighborhood groups killed rapid transit? When and how?
Will, how do those 100-story inexpensive residential apartment buildings pencil out?
#16 - BS - upzoning both directly drives up prices by driving up land values, and also creates a strong financial incentive to tear down existing affordable housing to build newer, more expensive, and more profitable housing. Seattle planning efforts have been long on upzones, and equally long on promises to preserve and protect existing uses and residents. When the rubber hits the road, which one of those two elements falls by the wayside?
This is the part of the equation that you supply-siders refuse to get - supply and demand isn't a divine law like gravity or something, it is often driven by deliberate policy decisions to favor one use (let us say biotech) over another (let us say manufacturing and light industrial). Building and construction do in fact create demand for housing, particularly if govt. is making decisions that favor commercial uses (like biotech) that are likely to result in a lot of recruiting from outside of the area.
For example, if govt. decides to build a project like the Seattle Commons (just to pick one cited above) with the notion that you will "redevelop" a functioning midrise neighborhood with a fair number of affordable units, you are using tax money (in that case, $400+ million) to attract new upscale development. In other words, you are subsidizing the removal of what is there now to make room for a bunch of shiny, new -and yes -expensive buildings that are intended to attract a more upscale set of workers and residents than those who are there now. This does nothing to lower the price of housing, and Seattle voters rightly recognized that using a massive number of their tax dollars to do so was a sucker bet for them.
It's rather like hearing our local electeds talk about how they want to preserve family-wage jobs for working class folks out of one side of their mouth while allowing hotels and commercial uses to be built in what little remaining industrially-zoned land we have in the City out of the other.
The net result is exactly as I described it @7, and no amount of trickle-down lipstick will change the nature of that pig.
BTW - @14 - it is ILLEGAL to require a certain number of units be affordable (and the City is in the middle of a massive PR effort to try and convince rightly skeptical citizens that housing affordable to people earning 80% of median is worthy of public subsidy. Great deal if you're a developer, and a surefire recipe for displacement of the poor slobs whose older building just got that much more profitable to demolish.)
The market for suburban housing exists DESPITE New Urbanist policies, and those policies are displacing real people from Seattle by the thousands. Just who has their head in the sand here?
As I said before, and as Will in Seattle said in a different form, there's no reason to pit single-family homes against increased density. We can and should have both.
Just build density along transit lines, so much of it that the supply makes city living affordable for all kinds of people. Over time, the single-family housing will tend to be bought up by wealthier people, but at least there will be somewhere for everyone else to live. It's simply not possible for everyone to have a huge single-family home given the population, and resource and environmental limitations. But with good planning, there will be somewhere in the city for people of all means to live. Successful cities are neither ghettoes for the poor or enclaves for the wealthy.
The other option is to build single-family homes closer together either semi-detached or completely undetached(think San Francisco townhomes) that way, it can be dense but still be single family.
Mr. X, your comments are the epitome of populist dimwitticism.
The Commons presented us with two choices. We could take Paul Allen's donation of land and turn it into a public park, or we could tell him to keep it and develop it into condos.
Idiots like you voted for the condos. Why? Based on some dumb slogan about parks being "a playground for the rich at the expense of the middle class". Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Monaco is a playground for the rich. A park is a playground for anyone who likes parks.
Really dumb.
Josh, you're such a hypocrite. Really, you are. If you ever got a job that allowed you to afford to buy a house you would be one of the first people who would then turn around and shit himself blind if they proposed to put multi-family housing in your neighborhood. Just like Erica C. Barnett discovering how much she likes to drive or Erica pissing and moaning because they're tearing down her favorite bar (or Erica and Dan bitching about how public transit would be great if they didn't let the icky public use it).
As far as the Commons and the South Lake Union streetcar why should anyone in Seattle assume that the Commons would have turned out any better than any other Paul Allen project, like the shitty condos that Vulcan builds or the Experience Music Center? And could someone explain to me what the exactly the SLU streetcar does that existing bus service didn't already do, except for more money and on rails?
The Commons was shot down twice in city wide elections. At the time the city's parks were falling apart, and the downtown elites that the Stranger sympathizes with went to Seattle neighborhoods and said "hey, here's the deal, your neighborhood parks are falling apart, but let's build a big park downtown cuz it will be really cool.
The commons had little or no grass-roots, public support. It was a true astroturf initiative supported by Norm Rice, the Seattle Times and lots and lots and lots of Paul Allen's money (oh, and Dan Savage who thought we should build the Commons as it would be a great place for gay men to have sex. Yet despite Rice's whoring for it, despite the Seattle Times whoring for it (the fact that they owned property in the neighborhood had nothing to do with their editorial stance, really, it didn't) and Paul Allen dropping about a million bucks to push the plan it still failed. The fact that so many so-called "progressives" have forgotten about the big money behind the Commons, and the fact that Seattle's neighborhoods were being shamefully neglected by the city council is nothing more than historical revisionism.
Oh, it's also interesting how you left out the part of Barker's editorial where he wrote "Light rail, always the worst, least sensitive option, is being bulldozed through by the political will of unaccountable politicians alone." Shit, couldn't quote that could you, it would clash with the whole "light rail good, two legs bad" party line at the Stranger.
The problem I have with this discussion (and the Knute Berger/Joel Connelly Axis of Evil) is that density is going to happen here. The question, as Will in Seattle, Cascadian and Andrew have alluded to, is what form it's going to take.
Density can promote community and walkability, good health and the like, or it can be isolating and ugly, or cramped and ugly. It depends on how well it's done, and whether services are within easy and safe walking distance. We should be increasing discussion on the different developments and making sure they are done well.
Bill Kreager of Mithun Architects does the "Honey I Shrunk the Lots" presentation which focuses on dense, single-family developments that look great. Condos have their place, but we should be creative about creating quality communities.
@24 coyote:
This may be hard for you and the rest of the born and bread Seattle nobodies to believe, but some people's vision of this city extends beyond their own backyard.
@19, 20 - laws can change. Vancouver does it, we just sit and whine and twiddle our thumbs.
But the growth will happen whether you want it or not.
Remember when Dan and I were saying SLU would be filled in with yuppie condo buildings if they didn't build the Commons? That all the poor apartment dwellers would be forced out anyway?
Guess what happened? Yup, they're gone and there are yuppie condo buildings.
Stop whining and deal with reality.
Sean,
Your premise is fundamentally flawed - Paul Allen was going to donate $20 million worth of land (while he bought every other parcel in sight outside of the boundaries of the proposed park to develop them) and expected $400 million in tax subsidies that would mostly have been paid by Seattle residents. That isn't interpretation - it's a fact.
By the way - how do you explain the City Council making a formal policy decision after the proposed Seattle Commons failed twice at the polls to decide to live with the Mercer/Valley corridor as is, do an RFQ that ensured that only Paul Allen could buy the old Bay Freeway properties (look it up), and then let him put a new two-way Mercer plan through after the City had rejected that option (mostly because decades of studies amply proved that you can spend $100 million reconfiguring those streets and get no discernable benefit) before they sold him the property? This is exactly the kind of broad-brush pro-density boosterism that misses every bit of context and history behind all of this stuff.
In summary - Seattle taxpayers were gonna pay the vast majority of the cost to build a new amenity for Paul Allen's world-class new development, and to call it a gift from Paul Allen is a grotesque distortion. Then as now, it's a glorified stadium-style land grab where the public costs vastly outweigh the benefits to the average Seattle Joe.
Oh, and Will - do you remember when Joel Horn et al said no one would ever build new busineses or residences in SLU without a big public investement in the Commons to prime the pump? I sure do. And take a walk down there - you'd be surprised to see how many of the old-time businesses are still there (and at least the failure of the Commons meant that Mr. Allen had to pay market rate for the people he did buy out - rather than blighting their properties with the threat of eminent domian enought to ensure they would sell at fire sale prices).
1. The Commons was a project of the city's elite, aimed at creating a nice green space around which condos for the very-rich could be built. It got voted down by working-class Seattleites who saw no reason to subsidize the construction of housing they couldn't afford.
2. The Monorail was killed by a series of blunders by its promoters and supporters. It wasn't murder, it was suicide.
3. Every neighborhood planning effort in Seattle over the past 20 years has ended with the same deal: the city gets to upzone the commercial and multi-family properties and the single-family areas stay single-family. If you try to back out on this deal after a few years, the single-family folks will not only be pissed, they'll be justified.
J.R. @29,
The public lost a park, voting against it because they believed Paul Allen was going to use the park to displace industry with unaffordable condos.
Now, he's transforming SLU anyway with condos and industry.
Still no park for the public.
Great vote.
#23: Parks aren't always just free, open spaces for kids to play whenever they want. Over the last couple years, the Parks Department has been turning our green spaces, formerly open to all, into big swaths (sp?) of plastic to be rented by the hour, often by adults who don't even live in the city.
And here we go again with the ideological mud slinging and name calling!
Aside from the mental bubble, this retarded infighting is also one of the biggest reasons people fail to side with the urbanists. Why Would citizens want to try something new if the people pitching it are always bitching at each other over which hackeneyed urban theory is more right?
Josh @30: "Now, he's transforming SLU anyway with condos and industry."
The neighborhood activists are not responsible for the zoning in SLU.
A few points by neighborhood activists I never understand:
1. If you want to preserve your small single family neighborhood, why oppose skyscraper housing in the core?
Then all the yuppie condo dwellers can concentrate in one area, leaving your precious old neighborhood alone.
2. If you don't like living by multi-family or commercial structures why did you buy that single family house on a block already zoned multi/commercial/industrial mixed? or likely to be upzoned since its on a major transportation route?
(special shout out to the whiny neighbors around 12 & Jefferson)
3. Instead of complaining about all the ugly townhouses, why not fight for better quality, small apartment/condos buildings? This blight came about because so-called neighborhood activists prefered them to a solid six unit.
Is the parking on your street actually easier than if apartments w/o parking were built?
Are the four detached townhouses on a lot(three narrow stories topping an SUV carport decorated with their pseudo-craftsman kitsch) really more attractive than one modern building built with quality materials?
Anna,
In response to your last two questions - yes and yes.
...and Josh, the ProParks levy is funding part of a $30 million plan to create/expand a 12 acre waterfront park at South Lake Union. In case you didn't know, there are also nearly 5 acres at Denny Park and Cascade Playfield in the area, as well (granted, Paul Allen took campaign park back so he could put his marketing center there, but whose fault is that?).
So yeah, there's no public park in SLU. Really.
Josh @ 30: The people didn't "lose a park" when they voted against the Commons. They decided not to create one to subsidize condo development. Since then, the public has voted to purchase and preserve existing open space around the city. And Paul Allen and other developers ended up building condos without any government handouts. Sounds like a happy ending to me.
Anna @ 34, point 3: Townhouses and small regular apartment buildings are built under roughly the same land use code provisions. The major reason why developers now split the buildings apart is that new buyers seem prefer the separate units (pseudo single-family homes).
On your first point, I don't know if neighborhood activists opposed the recent changes to the downtown plan. If you were referring to the neighborhood-led 1989 CAP initiative, that imposed limits on downtown office space, not housing.
People vastly prefer single-family townhomes, detached or no, and I think they are a better way of preserving affordability AND neighborhoodness in the city than apartments and condos.
Because a townhome owner can own her land its a superior feeling for her (read this slate article about how most people world over prefer houses to apartments http://www.slate.com/id/2163969/), and since they can approve on it and remodel they are more likely to stay for a long time and thus the neighborhood gets preserved (or recreated).
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