United States | News & Politics

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The shift is a response to conditions that are found in cities across America: Neighborhoods that used to be affordable are being gentrified, while new condominiums and subdivisions mostly target the upper end of the market, endangering the supply of “starter homes” in reach of first-time buyers.

The iconic Cape Cods in Levittown, N.Y. — often considered the model post-World War II suburb — were typically about 750 square feet, roomy for a one-bedroom apartment but small for a free-standing house with two bedrooms.

Driving through the downtown on a snowy afternoon recently, Deborah Flagan, a vice president at Hayden Homes, pointed left and right at storefronts that used to be boarded and are now part of a vibrant ecosystem of retailers that includes numerous high-end coffee shops, a “foot spa” and a bar where people drink craft beer and throw axes at wall-mounted targets.

The upscaling extends well beyond downtown to adjacent neighborhoods, where the small-footprint “mill houses” that once served a blue-collar work force now sit on land that is so valuable they are being slowly erased by two-story moderns with seven-figure sales prices.

Toward the end of the snowy driving tour, Ms. Flagan pointed toward one of those old mill houses — a compact, ranch-style home with fading yellow paint and a white picket fence pocked with broken boards.

Its business model is to deliver middle-income housing that local workers can afford, Ms. Flagan said, and it does this by skipping larger cities like Portland and Seattle in favor of lower-cost exurbs like Redmond (where the company is based).

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