What constitutes the "missing middle"?

[Docere]

What's defined as "missing middle" can range from everything "in between" detached houses and high rise buildings. The more "purist" side would probably come pretty close to the Statcan dwelling classification of "Apartment less than 5 storeys."

I do wonder if "5+ storeys" is too low a threshold for "big apartment", as it's often used as synonymous with high rise in these discussions. But that's what Statcan uses, so it's hard to distinguish a 7 storey building and a 25 storey building say.

Anyway...let's discuss.

[MonkeyRonin]

"Missing Middle", IMO, can mean one of two things:

1. Mid-scale buildings. Anything in between detached single-family housing and towers, or other large-scale multi-lot land assemblies. This could include attached houses or smaller multi-unit buildings or even mid-rises. A set height isn't strictly implied, but should be proportionate with its surroundings.

2. Mid-sized housing units. Say, 800-1500 sqft, 2-4 bedroom homes, regardless of the building type they're contained in. Basically anything in between small 1-bed apartment units and large, suburban style homes.

[Nouvellecosse]

On Wikipedia they have it including semi-detached SFHs like duplexes at the low end up to lowrise apartment buildings while not including midrises. So basically anything above fully detached houses that's still short enough to not require an elevator. They can have elevators but aren't required to.

But when I use the term I tend to refer to any middle part of the housing spectrum that's missing or under-represented in a given city or part of a city which in Canada can include midrise. When we talk about it in Canada it's generally because the vast majority of new housing units in several cities come in the form of skyscrapers which cram most new residential density into small pockets while the rest of residential land sees little to no growth. So the middle part pertains to the distribution of density rather than strictly built form.

[Spocket]

I would say it's simply any home that a family with a median income could potentially afford.

Right now, all we're building are either luxury shoeboxes for investors or McMansions for those who don't mind pooling all of their money to live 10 per home or for people with enough money to buy them outright after a few years of work. Basically, we're not building anything for average people.

Today's "middle" seems to be townhomes. I bought one and it's nice enough but I wouldn't mind having a yard and not having to pay management fees. Canada doesn't seem to do "family" apartments as a rule but if it did, I'd include those. My personal definition of such would be a minimum of two bedrooms and roughly 1500 square feet. Again, however, that's just my personal opinion.

[theman23]

I think ten to fifteen years ago the term was in reference to medium density construction, but more recently it’s been used interchangeably for any non SFH housing that has sufficient space to raise an average family.

[Nouvellecosse]

Interesting to hear the increasing use of unit size or price as part of the definition. That's completely new to me.

[ssiguy]

I don't think "missing middle" has anything to do with the type or size of the house. I think it is about affordability.

You can have a smaller house/rowhome/townhome but if, like in Vancouver, the ability to get one still requires a minimum of $1.5 million, what good does it do the 95% who can't afford it? Conversely, in very cheap markets there is no such thing as missing middle housing because the homes are accessible to all..........nothing is missing.

You can build this mid-density housing until the cow's come home but if people can't afford them then you have solved nothing.

[someone123]

I thought of it as medium density building stock, in some cases similar to what used to be built but isn't so much, somewhere in between houses and highrises. A lot of North American cities have almost no middle with flat suburbs and a CBD of skyscrapers.

One interesting angle is how building codes like double egress stairs and other development rules have made it hard to build some kinds of buildings. Often buildings that are very sought after in vibrant historic neighbourhoods.

[MolsonExport]

I think of it as those large flats with 3-4 bedrooms, that you could conceivably raise a family in.

Montreal is surrounded for miles by a ring of this type of build:




• Video Link

[Architype]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I don't think "missing middle" has anything to do with the type or size of the house. I think it is about affordability.

....

The missing middle in Vancouver is not based on cheapness or affordability, because there is no cheap housing to begin with. It is the type (building form) we built before the high-rise and condo waves came in the 1960s and beyond; mostly walk-up apartments, but it also includes housing stock converted from SFH to multi unit buildings.

[Djeffery]

The Montreal example Molson posted above seem to have evolved into what we call stacked towns now. I also think of stacked towns as the evolution of the old 3 story walkup, only they have direct outside access instead of interior corridors and less stigma.

[Docere]

Toronto often gets knocked as a city of "nothing but SFHs and high rises."

I guess that's true in say Willowdale.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Docere

Toronto often gets knocked as a city of "nothing but SFHs and high rises."

I guess that's true in say Willowdale.

It's largely true across the current city proper and wider metro area in terms of what's been build in the last 75 years. Obvious there have been some more medium scale projects but they're vastly outnumbered by SFHs in terms of the percentage of land they occupy and by highrises in terms of the number of units they represent.

Of course, it isn't unusual for metro areas in NA to not build a lot of medium scale stuff in the post war period and Toronto does better than them by also having highrises rather than just houses. But I think the reputation comes mostly from growing so fast during that time frame and from comparisons to Montreal which was the only city in Canada within Toronto's size range for a long stretch of time.

[hipster duck]

I think there's a lifestyle preference for inner city, walkable living to people who advocate for the 'missing middle'.

When people talk about how Toronto or Vancouver are just made up of single family homes and high rise condos/apartments, they're generalizing a lot but, beyond that, they're focusing strictly on the walkable, inner city parts of those metro regions. On the outskirts, missing middle is the majority of what they build: semis, townhouses, and low rise multifamily.

If all parts of the region were equally valuable and desirable, there would be less of an argument for MM, since it's already supplied, it's just not geographically well distributed.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

IOn the outskirts, missing middle is the majority of what they build: semis, townhouses, and low rise multifamily.

Could you share the source of that statistic please.

[Docere]

Dwellings

Toronto and East York Community Council Area

Detached house 50,305 11.2%
Semi-detached house 34,670 7.7%
Row house 16,065 3.6%
Duplex 14,375 3.2%
< 5 storey apartment 91,935 20.5%
5+ storey apartment 239,215 53.4%

Toronto (city)

Detached house 270,350 23.3%
Semi-detached house 73,160 6.3%
Row house 63,170 5.4%
Duplex 46,470 4%
< 5 storey apartment 162,260 14%
5+ storey apartment 542,625 46.7%

Toronto Census Metropolitan Area

Detached house 883,125 39%
Semi-detached house 164,580 7.3%
Row house 210,100 9.3%
Duplex 90,500 4%
< 5 storey apartment 215,325 9.5%
5+ storey apartment 694,735 30.7%

Montreal (city)

Detached house 58,065 7.1%
Semi-detached house 25,740 3.2%
Row house 26,175 3.2%
Duplex 107,565 13.2%
< 5 storey apartment 464,420 56.9%
5+ storey apartment 130,615 16%

Montreal Island

Detached house 100,615 11.1%
Semi-detached house 32,530 3.6%
Row house 34,075 3.7%
Duplex 110,440 12.1%
< 5 storey apartment 479,885 52.7%
5+ storey apartment 148,935 16.4%

Montreal Census Metropolitan Area

Detached house 582,875 31.8%
Semi-detached house 89,790 4.9%
Row house 59,765 3.3%
Duplex 150,110 8.2%
< 5 storey apartment 758,875 41.3%
5+ storey apartment 183,500 10%

Vancouver (city)

Detached house 44,750 14.7%
Semi-detached house 4,800 1.6%
Row house 10,815 3.5%
Duplex 54,305 17.8%
< 5 storey apartment 95,120 31.2%
5+ storey apartment 94,815 31.1%

Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area

Detached house 288,775 27.7%
Semi-detached house 22,030 2.1%
Row house 105,965 10.2%
Duplex 167,855 16.1%
< 5 storey apartment 255,555 24.5%
5+ storey apartment 197,280 18.9%

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Could you share the source of that statistic please.

Comparing the two opposite ends of the housing spectrum.

Mississauga

Detached 37.1%
5+ storey apartment 27.3%

Burnaby

Detached 18.9%
5+ storey apartment 29.4%

A majority of the housing in Burnaby is "missing middle" and "missing middle" outnumbers mid- and high rise apartments in Mississauga.

[hipster duck]

^I think nouvellecosse meant new supply, rather than total housing stock.

It's not the best, but CMHC reports new housing starts by census subdivision (municipality). I can't share the data without subscribing, but here it is for the Toronto CMA by singles, semis, rows and apartments.

You have to change the reference period to Annual > 2025, and the geography to "census subdivision".

In no city with a substantial number of new housing starts is 'singles' any more than 30% of the total volume; it's impossible to split "apartment" out by height, so it could be in any building type.

[Nouvellecosse]

I was mainly looking for the source to see, not just the housing numbers, but also how they defined outskirts and inner city since those terms can cover a range of different things.

Originally Posted by Docere

Comparing the two opposite ends of the housing spectrum.

Mississauga

Detached 37.1%
5+ storey apartment 27.3%

Burnaby

Detached 18.9%
5+ storey apartment 29.4%

A majority of the housing in Burnaby is "missing middle" and "missing middle" outnumbers mid- and high rise apartments in Mississauga.

I wouldn't consider any of Burnaby to be outskirts since there's fairly significant developed areas beyond it in pretty much every direction. Surrey, NWM, Richmond, Coquitlam etc. Pretty sure most would agree that outskirts would be defined as something like the areas as far from the geographic center you can get in a metro area without leaving the built up area. I can see there being debate about how far from the edge of contiguous development a place has to be in order to be considered the outskirts. I can imagine reasonable arguments for anything from 1km from the edge to say, 5km. 10km might be pushing it but even that wouldn't include large parts of Mississauga. Some might only include satellite/edge cities or exurbs when those exist. I would consider a big chunk of Mississauga to be outskirts, particularly the northwest corner including Erin Mills and Meadowvale. But based on the numbers above, missing middle is not the majority of the units there. It isn't even the largest plurality since there are more detached houses.

But i agree with hipster in that the term missing middle tends to include an assumption about the nature of the urban form. That it's a desire for functionally and aesthetically urban areas at ground level rather than density being in the air surrounded by suburban form on the ground. For people to be able to live in an urban setting without it having to the high priced enclave of a city center or vertical pockets of highrise density surrounded by low density. In other words, not just swapping detached houses for duplexes in car-oriented subdivisions and maintaining everything else about the suburban form. But let's face it. Duplexes are still generally better than fully detached houses from and an energy and land usage perspective and also often is terms of cost. So even if they can be lacking in terms of urbanism, there's still reasons to appreciate them.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

they're generalizing a lot but, beyond that, they're focusing strictly on the walkable, inner city parts of those metro regions.

And they're wrong even in that narrow sense. The older, inner neighbourhoods have plenty of housing that's not detached or high-rise.