Mixed use the answer to the housing ‘shortage’?

From the Asbury Park Press:

Mix of housing styles paves way to healthy economy

Mixed-use communities and density are tickets to providing the economic stability our state needs. The alternative is continuing high housing prices, continued sprawl, people leaving the state for places where they can afford a home and businesses following the workers. Most of us know someone who has done that. Many of us are thinking about it.

Our nation and state are growing. Although our state’s growth is slowing, we still expect to add another million people in the next decade. The issue isn’t whether it happens, but how we handle it.

We have two choices: Continue past development patterns that contribute to sprawl while consuming open space, an approach that will continue to give us long commutes, sky-high housing costs, high taxes and the migration of businesses and tax ratables. Or we can adapt new ideas put forth by organizations like the Urban Land Institute, Rutgers University, New Jersey Future, the Regional Planning Partnership, the State Planning Commission, Homes for New Jersey and the Sierra Club.
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Families are changing and no longer are looking for the traditional four-bedroom home. A quarter of all homebuyers are young professionals, childless couples, empty-nesters and single-parent households. When the National Association of Realtors asked people if they would prefer large-lot subdivisions or higher-density mixed-use communities, 60 percent preferred the mixed-use community.

Nobody claims these communities eliminate the need for cars. They do, however, downplay the automobile and bring in retail. People can walk to the corner for milk or a haircut. Along the way, they might run into neighbors. That adds to a sense of community, something lacking in neighborhoods today.

These communities need less infrastructure, so they cost less to build and require fewer dollars to maintain and service. That means lower taxes or more money to spend on other services.
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New Jersey has a severe housing shortage and affordability crisis perpetuated by a regulatory environment and outdated attitudes that block innovative planning. Those attitudes make it difficult to intelligently discuss how best to provide homes while preserving open space. If we don’t solve our housing problems, people will continue to leave the state for more affordable places. Businesses will follow and our economy will deteriorate. That will leave the rest of us to pay more taxes and receive fewer services.