Single VS Multi- What should Philly change so it can grow?

Question

Philadelphia has seen an insane amount of development and growth. Young professionals are migrating from NYC down south to the city of brotherly love, and as a result has seen population density increase drastically paired with a need for more housing.

Likewise, I have seen a huge increase on investors' focus on multi-families (be it RM1 or CMX) and am finding it more and more difficult to find anyone looking for RSA5. As inventory is running lower due to the growing population, it appears that getting zoning to shift from single family to multifamily is the only way to meet the needs of the people. This article from Philly.com (http://www.philly.com/news/minneapolis-single-fami...) outlines how Minneapolis has started the journey to stop single family zoning in favor of multi.

Should Philly? Will this help mitigate the misbalance between shortage of supply of housing to with its growing demand?

Rick C. · Answer

I believe Philadelphia still has a ways to go before it, as an entire city, can be considered unaffordable. Sure, the population is slightly growing, but not nearly enough to fill all of its vacant land, abandoned houses, and on top of that, make most neighborhoods unaffordable. The city had over 2 million residents at its peak, so there is still a lot of existing housing stock that could be improved.

To reiterate, I am referring to the city and region as a whole. Of course, if we are only focusing on the 2-3 mile radius of city hall, then the argument for encouraging multifamily could be stronger.

Jimmy O'Connor · Answer

@Rick C. valid point. Places like center city, rittenhouse, newbold, fishtown, U-City, nor.libs, are almost void of any possible inventory so within that radius, RM1 is a necessity. I think looking ahead, limiting RSA5 in neighborhoods like Brewerytown, Point Breeze, Grays Ferry, could help facilitate the movement back into the city