https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/11/02/single-family-housing-upholds-the-patriarchy-and-hurts-moms/
The article argues, persuasively, that suburban GEOGRAPHY does enforce female isolation: By disaggregating shared-use spaces into private spaces, and then burdening women with labor of upkeep and operation of those spaces. Cooking has natural economies of scale (notice bachelors rarely cook), as does childcare (minding ten children is scarcely harder than minding nine).
Some people embrace suburban living. But for many people, suburban living is an imposition. You take what you can get, because it's the best you can afford. Housing is durable, and few people buy new houses: In the last 10 years, there has been (annually) about 10 new house per 1000 people. Everyone else buys used. Each year, if we only build houses for new-home buyers (typically dual-income families with children), then in ten years, 10% of the housing stock is houses best suited for that style of household. Most people are living in hand-me down housing. And like most things handed down, it rarely fits well.
Some Simplicio will doubtless argue that if there was a market for other things, developers would built them. And if there was a free market in housing, they might even be right. Claiming that housing is a free market is either a lie or bullshit (in the technical sense). Zoning forbids multifamily development on 90% of urban land. An attached single family home, ie a townhouse, condo) is still a single family home, without any of the agglomeration economies of multi-family.
The article argues, persuasively, that suburban GEOGRAPHY does enforce female isolation: By disaggregating shared-use spaces into private spaces, and then burdening women with labor of upkeep and operation of those spaces. Cooking has natural economies of scale (notice bachelors rarely cook), as does childcare (minding ten children is scarcely harder than minding nine).
Some people embrace suburban living. But for many people, suburban living is an imposition. You take what you can get, because it's the best you can afford. Housing is durable, and few people buy new houses: In the last 10 years, there has been (annually) about 10 new house per 1000 people. Everyone else buys used. Each year, if we only build houses for new-home buyers (typically dual-income families with children), then in ten years, 10% of the housing stock is houses best suited for that style of household. Most people are living in hand-me down housing. And like most things handed down, it rarely fits well.
Some Simplicio will doubtless argue that if there was a market for other things, developers would built them. And if there was a free market in housing, they might even be right. Claiming that housing is a free market is either a lie or bullshit (in the technical sense). Zoning forbids multifamily development on 90% of urban land. An attached single family home, ie a townhouse, condo) is still a single family home, without any of the agglomeration economies of multi-family.
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