Last month, I visited the Griffith Observatory, one of the most remarkable vantage points that overlook Los Angeles. But beyond impressive views, its vantage also reveals the intrinsic ugliness of LA's urban design—an ugliness that has become all too common in cities across America.

To see what I mean, look at the cover photo I took from the observatory’s roof in January:

Look at the distinct drop-off in height between the towering skyscrapers of downtown and the low-rise commercial and residential areas radiating from it. Notice the sheer amount of occupied horizontal space in contrast to the amount of foregone vertical space. Sure, it’s silly to call a city ugly because it’s flat, but the issue LA’s flatness presents goes deeper than mere aesthetics when you consider that America—with California in particular—is facing a housing crisis.

According to a Habitat for Humanity 2023 report, 31.8% of U.S. households were cost-burdened in 2021, a figure that has reached nearly 50% in following years. The same report describes how record-low supply of options in American housing markets, paired with soaring demand of the growing American population, has created a housing unaffordability crisis, with Axios estimating an unmet demand of around 3.2 million homes.

But how is that possible when, according to the Census Bureau, over 15 million housing units remained unsold in 2022? That's where inefficient urban design comes into play.

Developing almost exclusively low-density housing is a recipe for systematic unaffordability. Note: 74% of LA's residential space is zoned for land-intensive single-family units (SFUs). Decades of near SFU exclusivity in LA have created market conditions in which homebuyers must compete for limited units on limited land space, fueling bidding wars that drive prices up to stratospheric heights—an issue further compounded by the absence of housing types that can accommodate more residents per plot than SFUs or mid-rise apartments.

But how about townhouses, duplexes, or even live-work units? Aren't those readily available too?

Well, that's just it. No, they're not.

These medium-density options are the 'middle housing' of the 'Missing Middle Housing' phenomenon underlying this entire issue: attractive, robust alternatives to SFUs and a key resource to solving the housing crisis.

Middle housing options allow developers to not only create more housing units per lot but also actively facilitate social integration within neighborhoods. To that effect, middle housing leads to smarter land use and higher affordability, as land costs are shared by inhabitants, housing supply is increased, and transportation costs are minimized as walkability increases.

Middle housing is great. So why don't we see more of it?

Admittedly, it's a loaded question. There are a multitude of factors that have relegated middle housing to a bygone era, from disease and fire hazards in the twentieth century to racism (e.g., exclusionary zoning) to the rise of cars and highways. But the concise answer is that a history of protecting the 'character of single-family neighborhoods' has entrenched SFU supremacy into American planning policy, making middle housing an exception as opposed to the rule.

Because for the past half century, single family development has been the rule. But lest we forget that, for centuries prior, SFUs were the exception.

The iconic townhouses and mixed-use apartments of NYC and San Francisco are prime examples of the way middle housing used to be the norm in America before the suburbanization of cities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Even Los Angeles—a city that developed with the streetcar and suburb—still had elements of middle housing with lofts and live-work dwellings lining the early downtown. To say, then, middle housing has always been missing is just not true—even in a place like LA.

So here's how we bring back 'Missing Middle Housing:'

Today's Los Angeles isn't alone in suffering from the 'Missing Middle'; suburban sprawl has become commonplace across the United States. Thankfully, middle housing can be integrated into any locality with careful planning.

Using the great work being conducted by researchers like those at the Terner Center For Housing Innovation as a basis, the answer to bringing back middle housing lies in changing the rules of planning. Updating zoning codes to allow non-SFU dwellings to legally exist is important, but it doesn’t spur new development. Cities should reexamine regulations that dissuade developers from building medium-size facilities, like mandating stairwell minimums per building, and streamline approval processes that have historically slowed the development process and increased start-up costs. Furthermore, states should facilitate inter-city adoption of these reforms by providing robust requirements for new multi-family developments as well as provide incentives for cities to go above baseline reforms.

And of course, this list is not all-inclusive. But with these three recommendations as a starting point, cities like Los Angeles across the United States can shed their ugly flatness and shine as beacons of responsible planning and urban design.