Ticky-Tack and Smallplex: Kamala Harris' Childhood Homes in Berkeley

A San Francisco Bay area housing advocate this week called the ticky-tack, smallplex childhood homes of Vice President Kamala Harris the "log cabins" of today. They were drawing a comparison between the way a shabby, very basic form of housing has been romanced in 20th century patriotic legend, our American myths of origin, but also inverting that, saying we should take modern equivalent forms of housing more seriously and value them.

via Library of Congress

That is worth thinking about!

via Bluesky

From the thread:

Kamala's first home in Berkeley on Regent Street was a 1940s stucco box. By the time her family moved in in the 1960s, it was already an older building, and would likely have been one of the cheapest places to live in the city....

Kamala's second home in Berkeley, a 5-story "ticky-tacky" (a type of building that's the ancestor of today's 5-over-1's) at 1945 Milvia would have been a modern new building when she lived there. At that point, her mother had graduated and gotten a research job.

Today, located close to jobs and transit, and with rent control that keeps rent stable, these 4-5 story ticky-tacky apartments remain popular with recent graduates in the East Bay who now have a decent income but still need to save money to afford living here.

After the 1970s, Berkeley voters banned both new 3-story boxes and the 5-story ticky-tackys, and as a result, soon found itself in a housing shortage, just as the student population shifted towards having more immigrants and their children, creating today's housing crisis.

Over at our Strong Towns group this week they linked to a piece at Sightline, "Five Reasons Four-Story Apartment Buildings are Good."

via FB and Sightline

The piece drew a firm contrast between four story construction and taller forms. On FB a lot of people seem to have employed the link as a prompt to argue for "5 over 1" construction and even higher buildings. But that's not what the piece was about, and it specifically discussed and discounted taller forms.

Not actually talking about this form
(Koz on State)

Not that more stories might be helpful in some instances, but there are particular reasons in the building code and for financing that four stories might hit a "sweet spot," especially in places not right downtown, and in and near residential areas.

The piece is worth a closer read!

Brand new construction won't often be affordable to newcomers, but people who can afford homes in new construction then won't be competing for other, older housing that is more affordable. Just because filtering's impact on local markets is not always immediate doesn't mean we shouldn't promote the conditions for it in our medium- and longer-term approach to our housing crisis.

We never know the destinies of children who live in more affordable housing, and if we are the land of opportunity, we will want to create the conditions for flourishing and realizing that freedom of opportunity.

It will be interesting to hear if Harris makes explicit her own housing story in her approach to housing policy. Maybe we can start some new patriotic myths about housing abundance!