Northeast Indiana is expected to need 25,000 new homes over the next five years to support growth within the region. The scale of this opportunity is not one that can be dismissed without profound consequences for future generations and depends on local leadership to spearhead the conversation.
Our homes serve as the vantage point from which we gauge the world around us. Where we live skews our perception of what the ‘normal’ arrangement of a community looks like. Framing our understanding of what it means to belong in a community, both geographically and socially. Therefore, the availability, density, and arrangement of diverse housing types within a community can either intensely limit or exponentially expand what it looks and feels like to belong.
Understanding of a home, both as a singular structure and in the context of the larger neighborhood, impede the ability of many communities to accommodate the evolving preferences of future generations. Without the lived experience of housing options that challenge stereotypical ideas of what successful and healthy housing looks like, current perceptions will not change, and progressive models of community development will be difficult to adopt.
Appreciation for new housing types depends on a community’s ability to become familiar with their presence and witness their ability to bring diverse groups of people together. Strategic housing efforts hold the key for groups of varied backgrounds, needs, life stages, cultures, and socioeconomic statuses to participate in civic life and belong within the community. The implementation of 25,000 new homes in the northeast Indiana region (NEIR) needs to be characterized by mixed housing types and arrangements—an opportunity that ultimately depends on local leadership who are committed to expanding the palette of housing types available within their communities.
The development of these 25,000 homes is a doorway for the region to recalibrate a focus around creating perfect neighborhoods and redirect it towards incentivizing perfect neighbors. It’s a discussion that could reshape our economy.
The NEIR comprises 11 counties and is home to over 800,000 residents. Target markets identified to occupy the housing demand across the region include: nontraditional and traditional families, empty nesters and retirees, and young singles and couples. Naturally, the optimal home type for each of these markets varies; yet, the development of communities often defaults to models that meet the needs of only a select few.
A series of common housing challenges, coupled with social barriers across the region, make adopting an array of housing typologies to fit the needs and lifestyles of these groups complex. Ineffective regulations, rising development costs, inadequate availability of housing typologies, and limited financing options stand as constant deterrents to new housing types and development patterns. Adding to the equation are social factors including political barriers, chronic isolation, NIMBYism, and inequality that not only affect the health of individuals but also strain the healthcare system, leading to higher costs of living for everyone.
It is, however, an inescapable truth that there is a rapidly shifting understanding of what the American Dream represents. More and more people are opting to live outside the conventional detached suburban home in exchange for being part of a walkable, urban community with services and amenities that expand their perception of “home” to the larger community. Over the next five years, our willingness to address the burden of these challenges will define the effectiveness of our neighborhoods for the next fifty years. This presents a substantial opportunity to develop housing in a fashion that can progress ideas of what it means to belong to a neighborhood and to be an effective neighbor.
For ancient cultures and earlier civilizations, ownership and concern for land often outweighed the importance of formal dwellings that merely provided shelter. Perspectives have evolved since then, altering the ways people behave and interact with their communities and the environments they inhabit.
Ordinarily, many understand their ownership being confined by the boundaries of their property line or front door. Reasonably so, considering homes are commonly people’s place of refuge and privacy. However, collective ownership of the places outside of one’s house is critical to the success and sustainability of a vibrant community. With the right approach, the transformational nature of a housing strategy has the potential to provide more than simply homes. How housing is realized across a community contributes to the creation of meaningful neighborhoods and holds the potential to blur harsh separations of home and community.
Defining a framework for future housing in the region must rely on appreciating its connection to the health and well-being of a community. Housing can serve as either a barrier or a conduit to diverse, equitable, inclusive, and reciprocal neighborhoods by the way in which our homes are planned, designed, and managed.
As the region seeks to define a new approach to housing within the region, it will be important for each community to understand that, while juggling the complexity of modern housing development, a short list of key development goals should be embraced. These criteria should include a commitment to:
To support the influx of target market groups within the NEIR, the density and diversity of housing typologies is crucial for success. As family demographics and priorities continue to change, accommodating variations in housing can contribute to the sustainable development of effective neighborhoods.
Largely, ‘consumer choice’ in housing has been regulated to picking between granite or quartz countertops rather than an extensive listing of different housing types. Consumers don’t fully understand the choices available because they aren’t offered. If they knew (and they were available), their choices would likely create a much more animated and connected community.
The integration of diverse housing types is a crucial step towards cultivating communities where people can live, work, and belong more effortlessly. However, there is more complexity to this work than what meets the eye especially in understanding how to incentivize their creation within both new and existing neighborhoods.
Housing typologies are essential to this conversation, but more important is the positioning of these “new” types of housing. Vibrant communities rely on density.
All homes are positioned to depend on the shared services and amenities of a community. The difference lies in the extent of that reliance, meaning different housing typologies (and the people they support) rely on the broader community in various ways. In new developments, the methodology can be straightforward. Housing should prioritize access to shared amenities, especially as it relates to pedestrian access to rich networks of social infrastructure (schools, libraries, cafes, etc.) and development incentives should be leveraged to encourage access to these places.
Transforming existing neighborhoods to accommodate a denser living arrangements is challenging. Many of these areas were initially designed with minimal attention to walkability and proximity, resulting in a lower quality of life for their residents and creating unique obstacles for future development. This complexity increases when there is also a push to introduce more diverse housing options. Nonetheless, there are solutions available. In both cases, the goal will focus on finding effective strategies to enhance density and diversity in contemporary neighborhoods, exploring innovative practices that range from modifying zoning ordinances to supplying various housing types.
This opportunity is about understanding how the growing housing demand can present a chance to reshape the region’s communities – to transform them in ways that ensure they are better equipped to serve the residents of northeast Indiana for generations to come.
Change this transformational requires a unified direction. For 25,000 new homes to be realized strategically, leadership will be needed to assemble people and priorities that champion the reality that the quality of our homes holds the potential for people to contribute, participate, and belong within a community – an opportunity that northeast Indiana cannot afford to miss.
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.“
Jane Jacobs
