Our loft, however, was hard to come by. When we moved to this part of town, we couldn’t afford a single-family house and we weren’t sure we wanted one anyway. Our previous home was amazing, but its upkeep was expensive and took a lot of time out of our already-busy lives. We were ready for something else and open to unconventional ideas.

Even so, when we looked at multi-family buildings or non-residential alternatives in the neighborhood, our options were seriously limited. Almost all the new, larger developments were designed for single people, roommates, and couples – it would be hard to make them work for a family. We found a smattering of small, older apartment buildings that are better designed for families, but the units got snatched up very quickly. And the new slew of townhouses being built in the area were mostly too expensive – in fact, we couldn’t afford our loft if we were trying to buy it today.

The need for this kind of housing is an enormous and largely untapped opportunity for both communities and builders. It’s called “missing middle” housing – the middle ground between single family houses and multi-story apartments that has been largely missing from American homebuilding for generations – certainly in places like Atlanta. It takes many forms, including traditional townhouses, row-houses, or brownstones, as well as small apartment buildings and individual garage apartments – what city planners call “accessory dwelling units,” or ADU’s.

The missing middle also includes less-traditional alternatives. Lofts like ours are carved out of old industrial or commercial buildings but these too often do not include bedroom doors, storage, or other features required by most families. “Micro-unit” apartments and “tiny houses” trade square footage for location. “Co-housing” developments cluster individual units around shared recreational spaces or gardens and encourage residents to share meals, tools, and services like laundry or housekeeping. “Shared housing” goes even further with shared rooms, kitchens, formal agreements for housework or homecare, and sometimes even hotel-like features and services.