alt Hacker NewsI heard that in Japan, it's common for condo developers who want to buy out smaller buildings to compensate the owners with an equal amount of floorspace in the new building - not sure how common that practice actually is, but what a way to align incentives!
I think a common thing in Greece was that owners themselves would redevelop their properties much denser, retaining an apartment or two of equal floorspace to their own home, and then leasing or selling out the others to fund the redevelopment of lot.
This sort of flexibility would be really welcome in North America but SFH neighbourhoods are frozen in stone, so when the nearby high street becomes cool, all the little former working class single family homes become million dollar homes that can only be purchased by the rich, and the working class people that may have previously rented them are booted out to who knows where.