I had a negative experience some time ago at an urban planning workshop, of all places. I will not say when to avoid identifying the event. I will recall what happened to make a point about how wide is our gap between the theory and practice of multi-family housing. The workshop’s topic was promoting multi-family friendly zoning, and I happened to be on vacation in the same city where it was being held, so I signed up. The workshop proceeded normally until it got to the Q&A section.
Since I had many quality-of-life challenges living in multi-family homes ranging from small duplexes to a high-rise apartment in South Korea, I thought asking about how to address these challenges would be relevant. I was living in a multi-family home at the time of the workshop. I chose to leave out my background to be brief, especially since this was a workshop where I assumed people were familiar with quality-of-life challenges from living in multi-families. That was a very wrong assumption. I also chose not to identify what I did for work because I was there on vacation and did not want to misconstrue my questions and statements as official positions. Looking back, I should have explained my background and work.
To roughly paraphrase since my memory of the event has faded, I asked:
“Now that multi-family zoning is becoming prevalent, how would you address quality-life-challenges such as noise, secondhand smoke, and social conflicts due to the close proximity between neighbors?”
Looking back, not really a great question. Too broad.
Another attendant eagerly got up and answered. Again, to roughly paraphrase:
“That is a dog whistle to put an obstacle in front of multi-family housing. If I am paying for a place, I can be as loud as I want and you have to deal with it. That’s life. Why should renters be treated differently than owners?”
People who are familiar with multi-family ownership structures would know of condominiums, which are owned, not rented. I grew up in a condominium unit owned by my parents in a 13-story building in South Korea. This person’s assumption that all multi-family residents are renters is problematic. Also is the insistence that there should be no regulations and guidance on behaviors in shared housing situations. At the time, one of my friends was suffering from secondhand cannabis smoke coming from her neighbors in the same multi-family building. I myself experienced many nights where I could not sleep due to noises coming from neighboring units.
What happened next was the most upsetting part of the incident. People in the audience enthusiastically started clapping for her. I have been in enough situations where people who have no lived experiences enthusiastically talk about a topic over people who do – talking about how fun working at a farm or a restaurant would be, giving stock investment advices without having bought a single share of stock, etc. My mind immediately made the connection that most of the clapping attendants likely fell into that group when it came to multi-family housing.
I raised my hand to try to respond, but the hosting organization would not let me. After the event was over, I went over to the person who used the “dog whistle” term and introduced myself with full context. I told her that I felt I have been attacked, and she tersely said, “I wasn’t attacking you.” My using the word “attack” might have been too strong. I felt that I ruined the chance of starting a meaningful conversation, so I walked away. I then talked to the hosting organization’s directors and staff. I later emailed them. They said that they will set up a session to address it, but they never followed through.
The “dog whistle” commenter turned out to be an affordable housing advocate and a real estate investor in a small region. If someone in that position has the view that all multi-family residents are renters and that it is okay to be disruptive to neighbors since they are paying rent, we have long ways to go toward developing truly livable and beneficial multi-family housing.
One of the most difficult challenges facing multi-family housing at a global level is noise and the subsequent disputes that sometimes lead to murders. New York City had at least one murder incident that led to the deaths of a father and a son in 2023. It is a very personal topic for me, so I will write another article focusing on that topic at some point.