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Will people take ownership of a neighborhood without owning their homes?

David Kennell

As we follow the Strong Towns playbook and densify neighborhoods, it seems to me that there will be a gradual decrease in the percentage of residents that own their own home. Gradually increasing density with Incremental development is certainly better than the alternative of allowing a single investor to create a giant 5-over-one, but it still does feel as though with increasing density, there is inevitably going to be a smaller percentage of people who have strong ties to the community, and leverage to control what is going on there.

Is it a misconception on my part that home ownership is one of the strongest connections a person can have to a community? I can't help but look at the history of people being pushed out of neighborhoods in one way or another and think that renting seems to put them in a very vulnerable position. Like people in the U.S. currently being pushed out by gentrification.

Another thing that I'm thinking about is the incentives to improve places and keep them nice. Owners will naturally have more incentive to improve the neighborhood, as it drives up their equity. Can we expect the same as the percent of people renting in a neighborhood ticks up?

Maybe I have just become so indoctrinated into the American cult of home ownership without even realizing it, that I'm failing to really take in the ways that renters all over the world take ownership of the neighborhoods that they live in. Just like every movie needs to include a love interest, every story of an American investing in a neighborhood needs to include a rise in property value as reward for you spotting that neighborhood that was a diamond in the rough, and doing your part to make it better.

I've seen people in rented apartments who grow houseplants with beautiful, thick creeping vines that cover their balcony. It's clearly an effort that took years, and I've always thought they were crazy to make such a commitment of effort in a rented home that they could be kicked out of at any minute. But now I'm wondering, am I the paranoid one? Is this actually what's normal? Clearly, dense neighborhoods with a high percentage of renters around the world are able to function very well, I guess I just don't understand why. Would love your input. Thanks!

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3 comments

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  • Comment author
    Edward Erfurt
    • Official comment

    Fascinating question! There's a common belief that homeownership leads to greater civic pride and engagement. The idea is that when you own a home, you have a vested interest in the well-being of your community. You're more likely to care about local issues, participate in local events, and contribute to the overall health and vibrancy of your town.

    However, it's important to note that this isn't a universal rule. There are plenty of renters who are deeply engaged in their communities, and homeowners who are not. And sometimes, the pressures of homeownership – like the financial strain – can actually detract from one's ability to engage.

    So, while there can be a correlation, it's not a direct, causal relationship. Civic pride and engagement depend on a variety of factors, including personal values, community culture, and opportunities for involvement. It's a complex issue that goes beyond just whether or not you own a home.

  • Comment author
    Norm Van Eeden Petersman

    David Kennell, your question also reminded me of several articles that have appeared on the Strong Towns website over the years related to this topic

    How Renters Can Be Neighborhood Advocates

    Just because I and others in my situation aren’t living in our homes for decades, that doesn’t mean we care any less about our streets, our sidewalks, our businesses, and our parks than owners do.

    Respect the Renter

    To begin with, most people have, at some point in their lives, rented. So, to suppose that all renters are loud, inconsiderate young people would be to suppose that everyone has been loud and inconsiderate during some period of their lives, which I know is not the case. In my job rapidly rehousing homeless families, I work with many landlords who have had some of their tenants for decades.

    More "Landlords on the Street"

    Rental housing gets a lot of flack for "ruining" neighborhoods, but that’s a misconception. Rental housing is great because it enables people of various preferences, circumstances, and life stages to live in the same neighbourhood. We all rent at some point, and often forever. I’d also argue that renters can just as easily have a sense of stewardship for their city as a homeowner might (I'm living proof).

    Problems We Don't Really Want to Solve

    One of the side effects of this pattern is that towns learned to zone and code development in a way that made it highly unlikely that poor people of any color would ever be able to move in. Minimum lot size, minimum home size, auto-dependent zoning, and so on kept out the riffraff. If you couldn’t afford a fully detached single family home and at least one halfway reliable car you were excluded – not by unconstitutional illegal racial covenants, but by economics and geography.

    Unbundling our Housing Choices

    How many people who subscribe to the Hallmark Channel (because it's part of the bundle) actually like it?

    Housing is similarly "bundled"—you can't disentangle a lot of these attributes from each other. And there are many, many combinations of housing or neighborhood attributes—think of them like channels—that homebuyers might love, but homes fitting the description are few or nonexistent. Sorry, you can't get this with that.

    Owned 

    The work of Strong Towns is prominently featured in a new documentary about the history of suburbanization and mass homeownership in America. Owned, directed by Giorgio Angelini, explores the human consequences of America's suburban experiment—from the explosive postwar growth of middle-class suburbs, jump-started by federal policy, through the 2008 market crash and its aftermath.

     

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  • Comment author
    Norm Van Eeden Petersman

    And more generally: 

    9 Ways Local Population Growth Can Improve Your Quality of Life

    Cities are organic things, and they are meant to change and grow as people come and go. Thriving places are meant to get bigger as people vote with their feet and move to them. It is only because of an artificial straitjacket of regulations and finance that so many American neighborhoods look the same after 30 or 40 years.

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