Here's to the Winners of the Seaside Prize and to 'Attainable Housing'

Housing supply is offering up something that looks very different than what today's households want to buy.

1 minute read

February 25, 2015, 7:00 AM PST

By Hazel Borys


"Attainable" housing is replacing "affordable" housing in city planning conversations. And attainable lifestyle—including transportation costs—is in the spotlight. Ben Brown culls insights from the weekend's Seaside Prize:

"The Seaside Prize goes to 'individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions to the quality and character of communities.' Obvious candidates are from the fields of design and planning. But receiving the award this year was a team of residential real estate analysts, Todd Zimmerman and Laurie Volk."

"Since the late 1980s, ZVA, as their firm is called, has helped developers overcome the tendency of supply-demand market research to predict the future by looking at the past. Zimmerman and Volk project potential market opportunities by more closely examining behavioral characteristics of demographic slices, especially the biggest slices of all — Baby Boomers and Millennials."

"At Seaside over the weekend, Zimmerman and Volk led a slightly deeper dive into Boomer/Millennial trends post-Great Recession and encouraged a broader conversation about 'Neighborhood Challenges for a Re-Urbanizing Nation.' Mainly the dilemma linked to rising inequality and community un-affordability."

Customers for the "traditional" American home are in the minority. Yet homes designed for the "traditional family" comprise the majority of choices. [Image credit: "Residence of G. L. Rule Feb. 18, 1898. Have lived here since Sept. 1893." Family stands in foreground, sod building and - NARA - 516435" by Unknown or not provided - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.]

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