Ali Ata

  Missing middle” describes neighborhoods composed of houses that are somewhere between high-rise apartment buildings and single-family homes. Ali Ata says cities and towns across the US are beginning to see the benefits of developing missing middle housing.       The term “ missing middle” came from architect and urban planner  Daniel Parolek  in 2013, but the concept isn ’ t new. Before the 1940s, small-scale, multi-unit housing types are found interspersed throughout neighborhoods in the US. Duplexes, triplexes, townhouses, rowhouses, and other missing middle housing types are generally built to the same scale as single-family homes, allowing them to blend discreetly among neighborhoods consisting mostly of detached units.   After World War II, factors such as zoning laws and changed home-buying preferences led to the popularity of single-family housing and the development of car-dependent suburbs. Ali Ata says fewer communities develop...