Teardowns
'Anti-Conversion Ordinance' Considered in Chicago
New zoning controls would make it harder to convert multi-unit residential buildings into single-family homes to prevent displacement in single-family neighborhoods in Chicago.
City to Resident: You Can Tear Your House Down But You Can't Build a New One
The curious case of Cynthia Dunne in Ladue, Missouri, who was permitted by the city to tear down her house, and then subsequently informed that a lack of water pressure prohibited building a new one.
McMimpact Fee Proposed
Should there be an extra fee for property owners who tear down an existing single-family home and replace it with a much larger, more expensive single-family home?
Study: Where Land Values Soar, Houses Come Down
Soaring land values are leaving an indelible mark on the building stock of Vancouver, British Columbia.
How Not to Solve a Housing Crisis
More trouble in River City, as Portland and Oregon struggle with rising housing costs and come up with a puzzling solution.
$2.5 Million is Too Much for a Teardown
Palo Alto has become so expensive, plots of land with derelict houses sell for millions of dollars. Mathew Yglesias argues allowing small municipalities to make their own zoning laws is partly to blame.
Montreal Begins Demolition of Downtown Elevated Expressway
Montreal will include one less elevated highway—so long Bonaventure Expressway.
Heady Market in Chicago's North Side Drives Teardowns
Lakeview, located north of Lincoln Park and adjacent to Lake Michigan, leads the city by a wide margin in residential teardowns over the past five years. Local developers are selling new homes for four times the original price paid.
Seattle Is Teardown Town
Mansionization, that conspicuous manifestation of the demand for larger homes, is alive and well in Seattle.
Debunking the Data Behind Seattle's 'Explosion of Demolitions'
According to an article by The Urbanist, some Seattle publications might have been caught telling people what they want to hear, rather than offering clear perspective on the building trends of the city.
More McMansions: Upscaling Suburbia
According to this article, the market forces behind large home construction are alive and well. In a process of suburban gentrification, developers purchase older, smaller homes and build "McMansions" in their place.
Montreal to Tear Down Elevated Bonaventure Expressway
The city of Montreal announced final plans to tear down an elevated highway and replace it with an urban boulevard.
Are Single Family Teardowns a Sign of Suburban Gentrification?
Luxury condos are often identified as the culprit in urban gentrification, but could it be that teardowns of single family homes that give way to much larger single family homes is a driver of suburban gentrification?
McMansions Spark Debate in Decatur, Georgia
Call them teardowns, infill, or McMansions, the affluent suburb of Decatur, Georgia is dealing with growing concern about neighborhood character and tree canopy as property owners adopt the trend toward new, large houses in existing neighborhoods.
Should Communities Encourage, Not Stifle, Mansionization?
As cities across the country consider ways to limit teardowns and large home construction in established neighborhoods, Anthony Flint argues that communities should be flattered by "mansionization" and accommodating to this form of smart growth.
Los Angeles Cracks Down On Mansionization
Despite concerns about lowering property values across the city, the L.A. City Council moved to limit the size of newly constructed homes in older neighborhoods to about 4,000 square feet.
Tips from Your National Park Service
In my hometown—and yours, too, I'm sure—a small, one-story house was for sale, and then it was gone. The guy who bought it promptly tore it down and then, because the new house he had designed was too big for the site, let the hole sit there for a year, a broken tooth in the 1950s neighborhood. Of course, the house he built was still too big for the lot, but there it stands, three feet from his seething neighbors: a McMansion.
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Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Berkeley County
Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA)
Ada County Highway District
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
City of Cambridge, Maryland
