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What is affordability?

Is Seattle affordable?
Words like affordable, sustainable and livable are thrown around regularly in conversations about how Seattle should grow.

But we want to know what these words actually mean, and how the city can acheive them.

In today’s DJC, SeattleScape blogger Roger Valdez introduces the topic of affordability.

On next week’s editorial page, we will run brief comments provided by members of the community, including elected officials, organizers and A/E/C industry players. (We asked them all to answer the question: “What is affordability and what can Seattle do to achieve it?” in under 50 words.)

Bloggers at SeattleScape will also take on the debate over the next few weeks. We hope you will join the conversation by commenting on the blog or emailing your comments to me at shawnag@djc.com.

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This entry was posted by Shawna Gamache on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Government, Planning, Politics, Seattle lifestyle, Zoning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • http://www.guerdon.com Randy Duggan

    When discussing the affordability issue of housing, why does the greater Puget Sound development and architectural community not consider using factory technology? Tacoma Housing Authority will use it for their 110 unit project and Unico plans to use it for their 66 units on Dexter. By and large Puget Sound will not even give it a chance. Through out the western US various groups use factory technology to solve their housing needs. I am not talking mobile homes here either but IRC stick frame building. I invite all members of the AIA community to read “Refabricating Architecture” by Kieran and Timberlakes to illustrate my point.

  • Matt the Engineer

    What is affordability? I think the best measure is family income divided by the cost of living. The cost of living should include at least housing costs, energy costs, the cost of a commute (including car payments, insurance, fuel, etc.), the cost of purchasing and cooking healthy meals, and the cost of child care.

    How can affordability be increased? Housing is probably the strongest factor. Living in dense housing close to either mass transit or your workplace can reduce several of these denominators dramatically.

    How can the city affect affordability? Encouraging small footprint, dense housing units at or near mass transit has the potential of decreasing housing costs per unit, transit costs, and energy costs. This can be done by modifying zoning laws.