The Missing Middle
99% Invisible18 Mai 2022

The Missing Middle

Downtown Toronto has a dense core of tall, glassy buildings along the waterfront of Lake Ontario. Outside of that, lots short single family homes sprawl out in every direction. Residents looking for something in between an expensive house and a condo in a tall, generic tower struggle to find places to live. There just aren’t a lot of these mid-sized rental buildings in the city.

And it's not just Toronto -- a similar architectural void can be found in many other North American cities, like Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston and Vancouver. And this is a big concern for urban planners -- so big, there's a term for it. The "missing middle." That moniker can be confusing, because it's not directly about middle class housing -- rather, it's about a specific range of building sizes and typologies, including: duplexes, triplexes, courtyard buildings, multi-story apartment complexes, the list goes on. Buildings like these have an outsized effect on cities, and cities without enough of these kinds of buildings often suffer from their absence.

The Missing Middle

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Episoder(776)

The Accidental Room

The Accidental Room

A group of artists find a secret room in a massive shopping center in Providence, RI and discover a new way to experience the mall. Plus, we look at the origin of the very first mall and the fascinati...

12 Des 201834min

Oñate's Foot

Oñate's Foot

Juan de Oñate is one of the world’s lesser-known conquistadors, but his name can be found all over New Mexico. There are Oñate streets, Oñate schools, and, of course, Oñate statues. When an activist g...

5 Des 201843min

Raccoon Resistance

Raccoon Resistance

After Toronto unveiled its "raccoon-resistant" compost bins in 2016, some people feared the animals would be starved, but many more celebrated the innovative design. Rolling out this novel locked bin ...

27 Nov 201825min

The Green Book redux

The Green Book redux

The new film “Green Book” is rolling out across the country. I have not seen the film, so I can’t speak to its merits or shortcomings, but while people are possibly being introduced to the concept of ...

21 Nov 201827min

Orphan Drugs

Orphan Drugs

We chronicle the epic struggle to get drugs that treat very rare diseases on the market, and the unintended consequence of that fight, which affected the cost of all kinds of drugs. This is a strange ...

14 Nov 201827min

Devolutionary Design

Devolutionary Design

It’s hard to overstate just how important record album art was to music in the days before people downloaded everything. Visuals were a key part of one's experience with a record or tape or CD. The de...

6 Nov 201832min

A Year in the Dark

A Year in the Dark

Early on the morning of September 20th, 2017, a category four hurricane named Maria hit the island of Puerto Rico. It was a beast of a hurricane -- the strongest one to hit the island since 1932. Dani...

31 Okt 201832min

Welcome to Jurassic Art

Welcome to Jurassic Art

At least for the time being, art is the primary way we experience dinosaurs. We can study bones and fossils, but barring the invention of time travel, we will never see how these animals lived with ou...

23 Okt 201828min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
dine-penger-pengeradet
e24-podden
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
utbytte
pengepodden-2
finansredaksjonen
pengesnakk
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
okonomiamatorene
rss-sunn-okonomi
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
lederpodden
rss-markedspuls-2
rss-andelige-tanker-med-camillo
rss-impressions-2
rss-fa-makro