Agree but I was saying something slightly different, but was actually saying two things so maybe I should clarify:
First, I meant not that we can’t have mixed industrial / resi anymore, but that we can’t have industrial areas period. Like maybe we’ll get some anti urban industrial district hacked out of former forest next to a highway exit off route 24 in some suburb, but we’re never getting new areas where the legitimately small businesses like the guy welding or carpentry or a small toy manufacturer could exist. And this reflects a deep and systemic way that the entire economic system, right down to local zoning codes, supports the chain-ification of every business and basically snuffs out any possibility of independent small ops that require cheap and frankly shitty areas to exist.
The other point I was making is despite my lament, it still would be cool to actually live in an area like this. But I wasn’t advocating for mixed resi/industrial, but simply for industrial / warehouse districts as going the way of the dodo.
Ah! The verbiage you're looking for there is "small bay flex / light industrial." I totally get what you're saying, since one of my cousins is a furniture maker in one of those aforementioned NYC neighborhoods - and yes, those spaces are largely disappearing in urban areas since they tend to be seen as "blighty," but we are
building new ones - as you say, the availability of such space is going down, thereby raising demand... Which
developers see as an opportunity. Ultimately, the market will build what there's demand for - those with money will get the new build spaces, vacating lower tier options for everyone else. It's basically the same model as the housing crisis, absent externally driven factors.
I do have a few thoughts about this, where we need to go back to the prewar era / learn from our international counterparts, and build up. Multistory light industrial facilities are the norm in Asia, and were here in the US before WW2 - look at textile mills and Detroit auto plants. Constrained availability of industrial land will eventually force it. Small spaces available for "friendly" light industrial uses, like a carpentry shop, R&D or coffee roasters, in a mixed use residential / commercial/ industrial development make a lot of sense to me. I see them also as likely to be one of the determining factors in making large floor plate office-residential conversions possible, as they can occupy the center windowless "void." Structuring it into a shared space would make it more organized, and therefore less noxious to neighbors than a bunch of independent storefronts in the same way industrial parks tend to present a nice neat suburban curb appeal. You just need to edit that into an urban appropriate form factor.
Seattle just built the first new multistory distribution facility about 5 years ago, and there's more being
built in places like NYC - but most light industrial uses won't need to bring trucks up to every floor. The below picture is one of our former facilities in China - (ignore the paint job - I know it looks like a comic book villain's lair, it used to be salmon pink) - we leased a suite here, much like you would rent an office suite in an office building, just with a freight elevator.
