Young Families and High-Rise: Towards Inclusive Vertical Family Housing

Abstract

In the near future, the vertical dimension of housing will become increasingly important. But high-rise housing is still being seen as not only inconvenient but also as inappropriate for young family households. This article aims to contribute to the vertical turn in the urbanism debate from a family point of view. The focus is on large western-industrialized cities. This literature-based article consists of two parts. The first part starts with the deconstructing of families’ position in urban high-rises. It is argued that young families have an “uneasy” relationship with urban high-rises due to the neglected presence of children. The dichotomous ways in which we define children and cities ultimately define city children and vertical living families as out-of-place. The second part of the article searches for ways to reconstruct families’ relationships with high-rises. Based on an analysis of the literature, problems of vertical family living are identified, and possible solutions are discussed on both the geographical scale level of the apartment and the building. The summarized conclusion from the literature is that vertical apartment living and happy family life are not necessarily at odds. The building of family-inclusive high-rises is both in the benefit of urban-oriented families <em>and</em> cities.

Planning and the High-Rise Neighbourhood: Debates on Vertical Cities

“…They argue that accepted conceptualizations of gentrification-as being driven by owner-occupied investment-need to be reconsidered given the socio-demographic composition of renters in gentrifying areas of the city. Critical perspectives on who occupies high-rise neighbourhoods is also the focus of Karsten's (2022) article, which advocates for new ways of thinking about inclusive vertical family housing. The article unpacks the "uneasy" relationship between young families and vertical living, focusing on the ways in which children have often been neglected in the planning and design of high-rise neighbourhoods.…”

Conceptualizing condominium law and children: comparing the state of strata titles law in New South Wales and Singapore

“…Yet, despite the pervasiveness of such families, children’s needs and interests remain a woefully under investigated area in housing studies. Hence, prominent academics have called for more attention to be placed on the issue of children and multi-owned housing (Carroll et al , 2011; Easthope and Tice, 2011; Karsten, 2022).…”

“…In contrast, most of the Singaporean population do not have the luxury of living in stand-alone or landed residential detached housing due to land scarcity. Singapore’s experience conflicts with the Western dominant discourses which view children’s presence as somehow incompatible with cities (Karsten, 2022). In fact, apartment living is the norm for families with children in Singapore.…”

Elastic Neighboring: Everyday Life Within the Geometry and Materiality of Large Housing Estates

“…Despite this, a growing body of research continues to stigmatize and marginalize "human-unfriendly" large buildings. Their common characteristics include a sparse but hyper-dense form of living, rapid turnover of residents, lack or absence of outdoor spaces for socializing, very high above-ground living without direct access to the outdoors, and limited accessibility to each other from inside the house (Graham & Hewitt, 2013;Hess et al, 2018;Karsten, 2015Karsten, , 2022Kerr et al, 2018;Nethercote & Horne, 2016;Rao, 2020;Urban, 2012;Yuen & Yeh, 2011). Huge apartment complexes have been consistently blamed for the decline of the ideal and norm of affective, lifelong bonds between co-residents.…”

“…An ontology that focuses on the relations between social practices and material arrangements, or the practice-arrangement nexus, and treats materiality as an influential constitutive component of everyday life (Reckwitz, 2002;Schatzki, 2010), provides new impetus for a nuanced analysis of vertical life. Social practice theory, which pays special attention to the material environment of practices or the essential role of materiality in everyday life, has gained popularity in neighboring studies (Bukowski & Smagacz-Poziemska, 2022;Karsten, 2015Karsten, , 2022Kerr et al, 2018;Maller et al, 2016). In my research, I applied the socio-material perspective of analysis to identify which aspects of built materiality, and in what ways, co-constitute residents' everyday practices and neighboring actions.…”