Should the Multifamily Industry Split In Two?

So when more communities enter the scene and the response is overwhelmingly negative, it is obvious that the multifamily industry has a branding and image problem. I would say that there are three major factors that lead to this image problem:

1) On the whole, apartments will have more poor residents, just by virtue of the fact that it is easier to get approved for an apartment than it is to get a loan.

2) It's all about perception in your neighborhood. If you have a more spread out single family housing development with the same number of units as an apartment community, it is less likely that residents will be aware of any problem that happened several streets away. Apartment communities, on the other hand, are so tightly packed, that even though crime per home is similar to single family developments, awareness of crime and other problems is much higher in apartment communities.

3) The media plays a large role in this. For example, when you have a crime in an apartment community, then the media will say, "murder in southwest apartment community." But if the same crime is in a single family home, the media does NOT say, "murder in southwest single family housing development." Over time, the constant association between the words "apartment" and "(insert crime here)" have a profoundly negative affect on multifamily reputation.

The industry had a great opportunity to bring great publicity recently as the savior of foreclosed residents, but ultimately failed to do anything. But overall, something needs to be done to improve the image of these communities. There are several alternatives to this re-branding of the multifamily industry, but I want to touch on one idea that I think would be especially relevant. As I mentioned before, there is a group that prefers apartment living because of the specific benefits this type of lifestyle brings. On the flip side, there are those who do not have the option of homeownership, so apartment living represents the best of what they can achieve. The problem is that the negative stereotypes that accompany the latter category inevitably cast a shadow on the first category. So it seems to me that there could be a strong benefit of splitting these two groups and brand them completely separately. This is similar to Toyota introducing the completely separate Lexus line. It doesn't diminish Toyota, but it gives a leg up to the Lexus line as there is a clear separation between the two. Now matter how nice you make a new community, with valet service, concierge, free massages, etc, it will still be called an apartment community, and therefore always be lumped with the slum on the other side of town that boasts a steady stream of prostitutes. Rebranding this newer community could help destroy that association and allow it to truly show the benefits it has to offer.

Any thoughts?