Incremental housing at the receding suburban fringe

Abstract

The years from 2005-2010 brought two major events that shook the basic assumptions underlying housing delivery in the United States of America. First, Hurricane Katrina and the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans that followed brought into stark focus the folly of decades of short-sighted land use policy and housing development that largely ignored environmental vulnerabilities. Second, a massive foreclosure crisis exposed the economic flaws of a housing delivery system that relies on reckless and unsustainable mortgage lending and borrowing to drive the construction and purchase of oversized, inefficient homes on the periphery of the suburban fringe. This thesis proposes a new model for high-density, low-rise urban housing that provides an environmentally responsive infrastructural framework upon which homeowners can readily expand to suit their needs and desires. Such an incremental approach provides for more economically and environmentally efficient housing while encouraging formal and spatial diversity in the urban experience.