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To: been_lurking
These "pave and pack" developers meet a legitimate market need for affordable housing solutions. If they didn't, they wouldn't be in business.

In reality, those developments are strikingly ugly, almost without exception. The houses are crammed together, and the designs are generally very unattractive. It need not be that way -- as the layout of older developments demonstrates. The design constraints behind "Pave and Pack" are various, but one major design consideration is indeed to maximize the number of houses within a given space.

Beyond that, standard house design (drive into garage/enter house, and the lack of useable front porch) tends to keep people out of their front yards -- it's harder to maintain a "neighborhood feel". (Having lived in newer and older areas, I know this to be true.)

Finally, the usual approach is to build a huge number of houses in a formerly rural area. Existing infrastructure is generally vastly undersized, which means that the city/county taxpayers are forced to pay for arterial development, drainage, fire/police protection, etc.

104 posted on 01/02/2002 11:11:07 AM PST by r9etb
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To: r9etb
In reality, those developments are strikingly ugly, almost without exception.

Your opinion. They are attractive enough to sell or the developer losses money.

it's harder to maintain a "neighborhood feel".

Obviously not a great concern to those doing the buying, or again the developer's houses would not sell.

Existing infrastructure is generally vastly undersized, which means that the city/county taxpayers are forced to pay for arterial development, drainage, fire/police protection, etc.

Then you should be tickled pink that the developer has maximized the number of taxpayers per acre. This creates a larger tax base and reduces everybody's share of the increase.

A little NIMBY always seems to crop up amongst those that have already "got theirs".

105 posted on 01/02/2002 11:32:05 AM PST by been_lurking
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