In an almost dystopian fashion, a new kind of housing is dominating the American landscape. Stretching for entire blocks and ranging in height from three to seven stories, these boxy assemblages of different colored panels are popping up in every city across the country.
Dubbed “fast-casual architecture” for their resemblance to better-than-fast-food chains such as Chipotle or Shake Shack, these apartments share many of the same characteristics as these restaurants, including their inoffensive presence, decent value, and assemblage of common ingredients. From an urbanist perspective, they bear no architectural resemblance to their region and are incredibly generic. The pictures above could double for any city in different corners of the county, and no one would be able to tell the difference.
However, it would be elitist for anyone to discuss the aesthetic of housing developments without analyzing the reasons for their proliferation. Digging into the popularity of fast-casual architecture reveals an urban housing crisis brought upon by restrictive land-use regulations and rising land values.
Fast-casual architecture like the ones pictured above usually contain rental apartments but could also be built as college dorms, condominiums, hotels, or assisted-living facilities. In internet memes (like the one pictured below), this architectural style has become a scapegoat for gentrification. In reality, housing is built in this style for all classes of people, pointing to an underlying culprit in land-use regulations and how developers can build in cities.
Despite their external similarities, these developments have more in common with each other by what’s on their inside. Their light-frame wood build turns out to be the most cost-effective way to house the most number of people on the smallest parcel of land, a priority for developers looking to build both affordable housing and luxury apartments in crowded downtowns. Throw in fire safety code and the majority of these apartments are also built on concrete podiums that serve as retail space or underground parking structures (I could write an entire article on the defects of municipal parking requirements, but for now, just imagine the additional design constraints on property developers if municipalities force them to accommodate so much parking on a small plot of land).
Zoning in cities has also drastically limited the available parcels that allow for the amount of housing needed today. To assure residents that their neighborhoods would not change adversely, urban planners developed strict guidelines for the kind of developments that could be built by designating “zones” on city maps since the early 20th century. Homeowners were afraid that industrial warehouses or large housing projects in their vicinity would lower their home values. As a result, the remaining land that allows for the housing density needed in today’s housing shortage is incredibly finite and expensive for developers to acquire, resulting in the most economical construction methods.
Restrictive land-use regulations drive up developers’ costs, and high costs drive down the possibility for unique architectural designs. Blocky mixed-use buildings are the market’s only answer for working under the strict costs and restraints of building in cities today. Unless we actively try to break from NIMBY (“Not in my back yard”) ideologies of the past that have restricted housing density, the monotonous architectural style of fast casualism will persist.