…yes, on the lower end. Assuming you’re not trying to be snarky, this is what many of us are talking about when we say “missing middle” housing:
For those who didn’t look in the article, here’s the city’s website on it (not to be confused with the CAMPO study about transportation between Wake and Johnston counties with the same name):
It sounds like the original goal was to finish the study last summer, but it took a while for the study’s planners and consultants to act on the feedback they got from their draft recommendations.
If last year’s draft were adopted, the city would’ve annexed the following five subdivisions of the study area about every two years:
There’s also policy changes like incentivizing developers to consolidate land plots and creating green infrastructure, as well, but we’ll need to see the final draft to see which ones will stick around.
Came across an interesting article that discusses challenges of making cities more dense across the (Western) world and the fact that pushback is not just an American phenomenon. Towards the end of the article they state that pushback might actually be less in American cities than in other places such as London and Berlin due to “market-oriented” versus “regulation-oriented” environments.
London and the UK are definitely in a worse affordability crunch than we are - their regulations and NIMBYism are frighteningly strong. Things like “green belts” (that are mostly gas stations and light industrial detritus) and systems of “community input” that make it easy for locals to nix denser development are making it harder and harder to find a place to live.
I had a Mazda Protege 5 hatchback until it finally died in the middle of Capital Blvd on the way to work one day. Tiny car with 3 carseats in the back seat. haha I had to “upgrade” to my CX5 when my Protege died b/c 2 boosters plus a full sized carseat barely fit in my old car. Now my kids are 13/13/8 and there is still enough room in the back seat for all three. I did find a used manual (6-speed) CX5 that I will drive until it completely falls apart.
I would probably buy the used manual CX5. I once had a manual Mazda 626 in the 90s. That car met its demise when a giant pine tree crushed it during Hurricane Fran in 96.
It would have made more sense if they factored in the demise of Minivans and full sized vans. Remember the vans with shades on the windows with carpet walls and roofs? They don’t make those anymore, so how would you expect a family of 3 or 4 to attend baseball or football practice with all their gear? A suburban or SUV.
To each their own, but sometimes you need the SUV to be capable for certain situations even though it sees pavement 95% of the time. I probably drive through a foot of snow or more a couple times a year, so I need 4x4 and enough cargo space to carry several pairs of skis and gear. Or the ability to tow a trailer 1-2 times a month, that can also navigate gravel roads and some off-road.
Plus some of those on the list aren’t really considered an SUV in my mind. Rav-4, Pilot, or Subaru forester are basically tall sedan hatchbacks.
Also remember the fuel economy standards set by the government allow for larger vehicles to hit lower MPG targets. This is a primary driver of normal vehicles becoming bloated. My 1987 Toyota truck was roughly the same footprint as the 2002 Tacoma that replaced it. Current generation Tacomas are the size of previous “midsize” trucks like the Dodge Dakota. This has occurred throughout vehicle lineups.
It’s infuriating for me as the list of vehicles I’d buy dwindles every year. When my manual VW Golf TDi gives out I have no clue what’d replace it. On the truck front I have a Dodge 2500 for work & towing. The hood is far too tall and blocks a ton of vision. I am routinely off road on farms and it’s straight dangerous how little visibility there is. City driving compounds this as pedestrian visibility is a true hazard. This was not a problem on full size trucks until 2007+
They used to do this in station wagons. To his day, my favorite personal car of all time was my 2011 VW Sportwagen TDI. It was small but could haul a lot of stuff and got amazing mileage and had surprising pep with a 6 speed manual. Unfortunately it was also a polluter after the lies of VW about it being a clean diesel were uncovered and I sold the car back to the manufacturer.
That could be a part of it, yeah. But at the end of the day, isn’t the replacement of (mini)vans by SUVs still a part of the same trend of our suburbs forcing us to be dependent on cars for literally any travel needs?
The whole reason you have to haul around such a big family with so much cargo is because the built environment forces you to do that. Where much of the rest of the world would expect student-athletes to store their big pieces of equipment on school campuses while commuting with a big bag for your sports things, individual American taxpayers subsidize that by making the storage of that extra luggage the responsibility of individual families -and single-family zoning and dependency on huge-ass cars are just two of many ways to do that. Minivans and SUVs are just two different ways to do the latter, but they serve the same purpose in perpetuating the same symptom.
Whether you drive a Prius or F150, you’re still a part of the ~80% of North Carolinians (as of 2019) who drove alone to work. If you have to gripe about getting needlessly larger cars in your personal life because of changing options from car makers, you might as well take the next logical step and start making life decisions that will let you become less dependent on cars -whether it’s by where you live, how you commute, or how you vote?
SUV GANG checking in. I need my Escape for the space - I play in bands and often have to cart a drumkit + more to/from shows (well, more often in the past vs lately, but it’s coming back). Also run a small DIY bookstand and especially when I do pop-ups outside of my usual Raleigh location, I need to transport a bunch of inventory and display stuff. I also just like being higher up off the road. I feel safer
You should definitely keep that, manuals are disappearing left and right. I have a 99 BMW M3 you’d have to pry from my dead fingers, I’ll never sell it.
I agree the truck and large SUV trend keeps moving towards bigger and bigger grills and hood. If I remember correctly one of the auto-makers conducted a study that found people felt more security with that presence of height and look. So they all followed suit.
Yea that would almost be in their new category of “SUV”. here is the current crop of mid-sized suvs. 10 years ago several of these would be big station wagons.
“The demise of Minivans … They don’t make those anymore”
Um. They absolutely do make minivans. I see plenty of them on the road. Even conversion vans are still available.
The “Demise of Minivans” is 100% fake news, it’s just that people these days are too insecure to drive something that is so practical. Scared of losing the image of adventure, youth, etc. And thus minivans are outsold by large SUVs (eg, Toyota sold about twice as many Highlanders as Siennas in 2021).
