Vancouver researchers estimate a quarter of the city?s homes could be torn down by 2030 In high-priced urban neighborhoods of single-family homes, the teardown has become an evolutionary stage, the process by which middle-class becomes McMansion (or McModern).
When the land beneath a decades-old dwelling built for working-class residents becomes more valuable than the house, and zoning hasn?t been changed to allow for multifamily construction, homes get bought, bulldozed, and then rebuilt as bigger, boxier, and less budget-friendly options.
?When a big chunk of a neighborhood is zoned for single-family homes, a teardown offers a terrible trade-off,? says Dan Bertolet, senior researcher at the Seattle-based Sightline Institute. ?You?re swapping a less expensive home for a more expensive one, and not gaining any inventory. It?s a developer seeking to maximize the land.? In many quickly appreciating areas that were recently affordable?Venice in Los Angeles, Logan Square in Chicago, or Queen Anne in Seattle, or many parts of San Francisco and he Bay Area?the teardown may seem like a inevitability, a natural part of the residential property lifecycle that ruins neighborhood character via the pursuit of maximum value.
According to a pair of academics in Vancouver, there actually is a formula at work.
Enter the teardown index. Joseph Dahmen, a professor of architecture at the University of British Columbia, and mathematician Jens von Bergmann of MountainMath Software, dev...