Teardowns

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.

December 4, 2020 - The Daily Line

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.

October 28, 2019 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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?

October 17, 2019 - WAMU

Soaring land values are leaving an indelible mark on the building stock of Vancouver, British Columbia.

June 21, 2018 - Business Vancouver

More trouble in River City, as Portland and Oregon struggle with rising housing costs and come up with a puzzling solution.

June 8, 2017 - Michael Mehaffy

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.

May 6, 2017 - Vox

Montreal will include one less elevated highway—so long Bonaventure Expressway.

July 10, 2016 - Montreal Gazette

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.

February 3, 2016 - Crain's Chicago Business

Mansionization, that conspicuous manifestation of the demand for larger homes, is alive and well in Seattle.

December 3, 2015 - The Seattle Times

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.

October 22, 2015 - The Urbanist

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.

June 8, 2015 - Bloomberg

The city of Montreal announced final plans to tear down an elevated highway and replace it with an urban boulevard.

December 22, 2014 - Montreal Gazette

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?

November 2, 2014 - Chicago Tribune

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.

July 1, 2014 - Atlanta Creative Loafing

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.

February 1, 2013 - The Atlantic Cities

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.

May 7, 2008 - The Los Angeles Times

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.

April 17, 2007 - Margaret Foster