In October of 2010 I was working on a project which entailed analyzing the impacts of elementary schools based upon their design and integration within, or isolation from, the neighborhoods that they serve. At the time, the availability of up-to-date aerial photography was difficult at best to find. I wanted some aerial photography to be included as part of my work but had to find a way to get photos that were as current as possible. I figured out an option for getting what I needed, and the answer was just a few doors down from where I lived at the time.
I was fortunate to live in a neighborhood which had a fair amount of housing choice. This is typically an unconventional feature do in large part to current zoning practices. Zoning forces housing types to be similar or the same within its regulating areas. My neighborhood’s mix of housing contained a multitude of housing types and housing sizes. This higher degree of housing choice allowed me direct access to an individual that would have been out of economic and social reach for me under typical neighborhood conditions. My neighbor was extremely well off financially and could have chosen to live in a much more homogeneous neighborhood containing large, executive homes surrounded by households of similar wealth and economic status. This type of development pattern is one of the ugly secrets of zoning – it legally allows segregation using economic status as the delivery metric.
This neighbor of mine was a “salt of the earth” man. He had wealth, but you wouldn’t know it by meeting him. One of his personal hobbies was flying. At the time he had a plane and was building another one. I approached him and asked if he would be willing to take me up in his plane so I could create my own aerial photography for my work project. His reply was, “When do you want to go?”
Eastlake Elementary (2010) | Daybreak – South Jordan, UT
I share this story for the specific purpose of demonstrating WHY we need to work harder in allowing for development patterns that will deliver a greater range and diversity of housing types in FUTURE neighborhoods. I say FUTURE because our ability to impact and change existing neighborhoods, by diversifying the mix of housing, is a much more challenging objective. It is not impossible by any stretch – but in a highly empowered NIMBY environment, as presently exists in most places, it is far more challenging to pull off. The opportunity to deliver housing choice within FUTURE neighborhoods has a much higher degree of opportunity, while simultaneously preserving individual “free will” to choose this living arrangement once complete. This is critical because not everyone wants to live in this kind of arrangement. There are many who want/choose to live amongst their “tribe.” They are “Target” people who would prefer to not live around “Wal-Mart” people. They may also ascribe to be part of the “Nordstrom” people, but zoning (and also the “Nordstrom” people in their “Nordstrom” neighborhood) would never allow for that.
As I mentioned previously, because of my neighbor’s economic status he really could have chosen to live just about anywhere. However, through his own choosing he elected to live in the location three doors down from me. He was a “Nordstrom” guy that chose to live amongst both “Target” and “Wal-Mart” folk. I had him as both a mentor and friend for the entire time I lived in that neighborhood.
On August 1, 2022 an expansive new study was published which analyzed the Facebook friendships of 72 million people, amounting to 84 percent of U.S. adults aged 25 to 44. The purpose of the study was to analyze the relationship between where people live, the friendships associated with where they live, and the impact on household earning potential. What the study identified was a causal relationship in a child’s opportunity for greater economic upward mobility when there is more exposure to friendships that cut across socioeconomic lines. The study refers to this relationship as “economic connectedness.”
This study is highly significant because it identifies how important relationships can be between people and the places they inhabit. WHERE one lives and WHO they are able to associate with can be life changing. Living in a place with a high level of economic connectedness fosters relationships which can lead to strengthened economic outcomes, and the opportunity of lifting households out of poverty.
Source: The New York Times - “Vast New Study Shows a Key to Reducing Poverty”
There is an informative New York Times article which covers this study that is definitely worth a read. There is also an online tool which allows individuals to view where they live within the context of the study. You can compare degrees of economic connectedness at the county, zip code, high school, or college level – anywhere in the United States.
The results of this study have a strong correlation to some analysis work that I was a part of back in 2014. At that time, I was working for the real estate investment department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS Church). I had been assigned to act as a liaison with another church department that was responsible for the forward planning and management of ecclesiastical buildings (meetinghouses) of the church. As we got to know each other and shared information about what we each did we quickly identified areas of overlap that would serve as mutual benefit to collaboratively study further. One of the items we identified was a hypothesis regarding the correlation between available housing and its impact on LDS Wards.
For purposes of clarification, an LDS Ward is a type of local congregation. A ward is presided over by a Bishop. As with all church leadership, the Bishop is considered lay clergy and as such is not paid. Two counselors serve with the Bishop to help with administrative duties of the ward and also preside in the absence of the Bishop. Wards are created based on setting geographic boundaries which are intended to organize between 200 to 500 active church members within a reasonable travel time to an assigned meetinghouse. In areas where there are higher concentrations of active church members (such as Utah’s Wasatch Front), the area of a ward can often be as small as one-fifth of a square mile.
Wards are organized into “auxiliaries” which are intended to serve the more specific needs of a given demographic group. The auxiliaries of a ward are directly overseen by the Bishop and consist of the Relief Society (LDS Women's organization), the Priesthood (LDS Men’s organization) the Young Men and Young Women (teenagers) organizations, and the Primary (children's organization).
This background is important to understand because within the context of an LDS Ward is a deeper, causal relationship that can be studied using the structure of an LDS Ward as a “research control” for understanding the underlying nature of a neighborhood. This understanding is what I collaborated with my colleagues from the other church department to learn from. After identifying wards where we understood the housing type(s) within its boundaries, we used ward membership statistics to dissect the influence of the housing mix (on a measuring scale of homogenous to diverse) when comparing the optimal to actual membership percentages within the ward’s auxiliaries. Our hypothesis was that the more diverse the range of housing was within a ward the more balanced the ward would be in its Optimal -vs- Actual auxiliary percentages, and the more homogeneous the housing mix would mean less balance in the Optimal -vs- Actual relationship. After analyzing over 70 LDS wards our hypothesis proved to be extremely accurate.
LDS Ward Comparison by Housing Type
This was a critical discovery for a multitude of reasons. The most relevant of the findings which ties to the subject matter in this article has to do with the correlations to the independent study referenced earlier. An LDS ward, by design, is a form of welfare service unit. As a welfare service unit, it is intended (among other things) to balance service needs within the ward between those who can provide and those in need of receiving service. When a ward is balanced it can manage and maintain its service needs without the requirement of any outside assistance from other parts of the church. When a ward is out of balance its ability to manage and maintain its own needs is tremendously impeded which then often demands the requirement for outside assistance from other parts of the church.
It is important to note that the LDS church has no direct ability to impact development patterns which may influence better ward creation (outside of when they may own property themselves). They must simply respond to development that occurs and then hope for the best when they set geographic ward boundaries. Hoping for the best doesn’t get very far though when imbalances are severe. Imbalance means the same thing as the independent study referenced earlier – it contributes to a less than ideal living arrangement for the lives of those experiencing the imbalance. It can exhibit in the form of either too many potential providers of service and not enough receivers, or the opposite – too many potential receivers and too few providers to meet the needs within the ward itself. Balance in the system must then be provided from outside the ward rather than the way in which it was intended – from within the ward system directly.
Our development patterns are the culprit in whether a ward (or a neighborhood) is going to function in a sustainable manner. The homogeneous elements of DNA in our present development patterns make it difficult to impossible to deliver well-balanced and positively functioning neighborhoods. To deliver a neighborhood which is made up of a diversity of housing types within its boundaries is virtually obsolete. Zoning practices (the DNA of our development patterns) require the homogeneous delivery of housing. It must be the same in lot size with a limited range of difference in building square footage to be legal. This delivers a neighborhood where the demographics are almost identical as you go from house to house. Housing is a “container” which, when filled by people, emits different types and levels of demographics – based upon the housing type, its interior programming of features and living space, and the socioeconomic attachments tied to price, cost, and affordability. Neighborhoods of diverse housing types emit a more robust living environment with much stronger capabilities for resilience and collective reliance through opportunities of genuine and organic service. Homogeneous neighborhoods, consisting of the same type of housing and no opportunity for choice, have a purposely constrained bandwidth for delivering what could otherwise be a much richer community experience.