Missing Middle Math: Making ‘Missing Middle’ Housing Work

Jason Syvixay | Sean Bohle

Abstract

The City of Edmonton’s Missing Middle Infill Design Competition sparked significant local, national, and international interest in the possibilities for the missing middle or medium-density housing design innovation. In their proposals for five parcels of land within a core Edmonton neighborhood, multidisciplinary teams consisting of architects, builders, and developers considered impacts to residents and the surrounding community, the competition’s design objectives, and financial viability. With the incentive for participation being the opportunity to build their winning design, teams prepared pro formas to articulate how they would proceed with their developments. This study seeks to explore the assumptions that applicant teams made when designing their missing middle housing proposals. As cities continue to contemplate the necessity for missing middle in their neighborhoods, lessons gleaned from this analysis may offer potential opportunities to address financial and regulatory challenges to development; in addition to understanding the industry’s perspectives on profit and risk with respect to medium-scale housing forms. Topical policy questions for urban planners and decision-makers might be the various factors hindering development, and the policy and regulatory improvements that may address them.

Keywords

Missing Middle, Infill; Housing; Pro Formas; Design

Twelfth ride: A Saturday Morning Driving for Uber in Cincinnati

Mickey Edwards

Full Article

Abstract

This paper examines twelve UberX rides completed over four hours in Cincinnati with the intent of comparing first-person evidence of ridehail travelers to a growing body of quantitative literature. Traveler data are based on observation and casual conversation between the author (driver) and the passenger. A typical Saturday morning was chosen beginning in Cincinnati’s Central Business District (CBD), and each subsequent trip was based on the location of the previous trip destination without intervention. This work attempts to tell the narrative of where each traveler was going, infer why they chose ridehailing, and explore the social relationship between riders and drivers. More specifically, it places these twelve travelers in the context of published ridehail literature. From the driver’s perspective, $68.32 was grossed after four hours of driving—including one tip, $2 tip on the twelfth ride. This small sample of ridehail passengers, and driver profits, conforms to findings published in the academic literature yet is not intended to be statistically significant. This work has implications for future research by presenting details about trips and passengers not before seen in the literature.

Keywords

Ridehail; Uber; Socioeconomics; Driver Earnings

The Invention of Abandonment and the Rescue of a Neighborhood: A Tiny Glance to Franklin’s Sanitas Building, in Santiago de Chile

Gabriel Espinoza

Full Article

Abstract

This ethnographic research focuses on the trajectory of abandonment of a factory in the Franklin neighborhood of Santiago, Chile. It establishes a chronology of the post-industrial applications of the building, from informal to formal. Buildings can be understood as the object of processes; despite their immobility, their uses and meanings are in constant reconfiguration. This article analyses two dimensions to understand the trajectory of the property; time frames of occupation and recognition of the formality of these periods. This illustrates how the use of buildings, conceptualized here as ‘interim spaces,’ functions as a process of urban renewal.

Keywords

Interim Spaces; Santiago; Buildings; Urban Studies; Urban Renewal