WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.020 Welcome back to the deep dive. Today we are tackling 00:00:03.020 --> 00:00:06.379 a subject that is going to sound at first blush, 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:08.779 like the driest thing we could possibly choose. 00:00:09.320 --> 00:00:11.359 It's something you likely ignored on your way 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:13.679 to work today. Or maybe you're sitting inside 00:00:13.679 --> 00:00:16.539 one right now and taking it completely for granted. 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:18.940 We are talking about multifamily residential 00:00:18.940 --> 00:00:22.460 housing. It does have a certain bureaucratic 00:00:22.460 --> 00:00:24.859 ring to it, doesn't it? Yeah. Multifamily residential. 00:00:24.899 --> 00:00:27.480 Yeah, totally. Sounds like a file you'd lose 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:29.199 in a cabinet at the planning department. It really 00:00:29.199 --> 00:00:32.469 does. It sounds like zoning code. But as I was, 00:00:32.469 --> 00:00:34.469 you know, reading through the stack of research 00:00:34.469 --> 00:00:36.670 for this, I realized we aren't really talking 00:00:36.670 --> 00:00:38.729 about buildings. We're talking about the history 00:00:38.729 --> 00:00:41.789 of how humanity stacks itself. That's a great 00:00:41.789 --> 00:00:43.710 way to put it. It's the story of what happens 00:00:43.710 --> 00:00:46.229 when we run out of land or when we want to be 00:00:46.229 --> 00:00:48.210 close to the action. And we have to figure out 00:00:48.210 --> 00:00:51.710 how to live on top of each other without killing 00:00:51.710 --> 00:00:53.850 each other. That is the fundamental tension of 00:00:53.850 --> 00:00:55.890 urbanization, isn't it? I mean, how do you compress 00:00:55.890 --> 00:00:59.149 a population into a small footprint while maintaining 00:00:59.149 --> 00:01:03.000 dignity, safety and hygiene? And the answer for 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:05.579 the last 2 ,000 years has been the multifamily 00:01:05.579 --> 00:01:08.379 unit in one form or another. So our mission today 00:01:08.379 --> 00:01:11.140 is to decode the jargon. We're going to talk 00:01:11.140 --> 00:01:14.719 about MDUs, tenements, six -packs, dingbats. 00:01:14.939 --> 00:01:17.519 All the good stuff. And really understand the 00:01:17.519 --> 00:01:19.819 invisible economics and the history behind these 00:01:19.819 --> 00:01:22.280 structures. Because whether you live in a detached 00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:24.659 house with a white picket fence or on the 40th 00:01:24.659 --> 00:01:27.540 floor of a condo, this ecosystem affects your 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:30.159 taxes, it affects your commute, and it dictates 00:01:30.159 --> 00:01:32.569 the vibe of your city. It dictates who can live 00:01:32.569 --> 00:01:34.150 in your city, period. It's that fundamental. 00:01:34.370 --> 00:01:37.129 Right. So before we get into all the weird architectural 00:01:37.129 --> 00:01:39.150 stuff, and trust me, there are some very weird 00:01:39.150 --> 00:01:41.989 ones, we need to lay the groundwork. We need 00:01:41.989 --> 00:01:44.310 to define terms. Yeah. Because I think a lot 00:01:44.310 --> 00:01:46.750 of people, myself included, use words like apartment 00:01:46.750 --> 00:01:49.170 and condo interchangeably. But they aren't the 00:01:49.170 --> 00:01:51.840 same thing, are they? Not at all. And, you know, 00:01:51.859 --> 00:01:54.819 confusing them really obscures what's actually 00:01:54.819 --> 00:01:56.680 happening in the housing market. So let's start 00:01:56.680 --> 00:01:59.420 with the physical reality versus the legal reality. 00:01:59.879 --> 00:02:02.519 Multifamily residential or MDU, which you'll 00:02:02.519 --> 00:02:04.500 see in the documents. That's the physical description. 00:02:04.739 --> 00:02:07.099 It refers to a classification of housing where 00:02:07.099 --> 00:02:09.580 multiple separate housing units are contained 00:02:09.580 --> 00:02:12.280 within one building or a complex of buildings. 00:02:12.500 --> 00:02:14.120 So that's the hardware, the physical thing you 00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:15.900 can touch. Correct. The hardware is multiple 00:02:15.900 --> 00:02:18.800 families under one roof. Yeah. Now, this doesn't 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:21.750 just mean skyscrapers. It could be stacked vertically, 00:02:21.990 --> 00:02:24.129 which is the classic apartment block we all picture. 00:02:24.250 --> 00:02:26.530 Yeah, the tower. Or it could be arranged side 00:02:26.530 --> 00:02:30.009 by side, like row houses or townhouses. If the 00:02:30.009 --> 00:02:32.430 structure is continuous and shares party walls, 00:02:32.729 --> 00:02:35.289 it generally falls under this umbrella. Okay, 00:02:35.370 --> 00:02:37.110 so that's the hardware. Then I guess apartment 00:02:37.110 --> 00:02:40.949 and condo are the software, the operating system. 00:02:41.090 --> 00:02:43.389 That's a good analogy. Yeah. Those terms describe 00:02:43.389 --> 00:02:46.400 the legal ownership model. When we say apartment 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:49.000 in the truest sense, particularly in North America, 00:02:49.219 --> 00:02:52.120 we're usually describing a rental model. Right. 00:02:52.219 --> 00:02:54.860 The building is owned by a single entity, a landlord, 00:02:55.139 --> 00:02:58.219 a pension fund, a REIT, and the occupants lease 00:02:58.219 --> 00:03:00.699 the space. You pay for the right to stay, but 00:03:00.699 --> 00:03:03.159 you own nothing but your furniture. Right. A 00:03:03.159 --> 00:03:07.180 condominium or condo is a legal innovation. Physically, 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:09.699 it might look exactly the same as the rental 00:03:09.699 --> 00:03:11.780 building next door. Indistinguishable from the 00:03:11.780 --> 00:03:15.599 outside. Exactly. But legally. You own the specific 00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:18.879 unit you live in, the box of air, so to speak, 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:21.520 and you hold a shared interest in the common 00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:24.419 elements. The hallways, the roof, the elevators. 00:03:24.439 --> 00:03:26.819 The swimming pool, the gym, all the stuff that 00:03:26.819 --> 00:03:28.639 breaks. So if the roof leaks in an apartment 00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:31.379 building, I call the landlord. If the roof leaks 00:03:31.379 --> 00:03:34.419 in a condo. You and your neighbors all open your 00:03:34.419 --> 00:03:37.199 checkbooks. Or more likely, your homeowners association 00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:40.280 has a special assessment. That sounds less fun. 00:03:40.439 --> 00:03:42.770 It has its pros and cons. But this distinction 00:03:42.770 --> 00:03:44.710 matters because it changes how neighborhoods 00:03:44.710 --> 00:03:47.449 evolve. A neighborhood of condos has very different 00:03:47.449 --> 00:03:49.830 incentives than a neighborhood of rentals. Absolutely. 00:03:49.949 --> 00:03:52.349 The owners in a condo building have a long term 00:03:52.349 --> 00:03:55.750 stake in the property value. Renters, by definition, 00:03:55.830 --> 00:03:58.270 are more transient. And then you have more niche 00:03:58.270 --> 00:04:00.409 legal wrappers like co -ops, which we can get 00:04:00.409 --> 00:04:03.050 into later, or intentional communities like co 00:04:03.050 --> 00:04:06.069 -housing. Right. But the core concept is the 00:04:06.069 --> 00:04:08.650 MDU, the physical act of sharing a structure. 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:11.900 And this is where we hit the first major hurdle, 00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:14.699 because in many parts of the world and specifically 00:04:14.699 --> 00:04:17.439 here in the U .S., if you go to a town hall meeting 00:04:17.439 --> 00:04:19.800 and say, I want to build a multifamily unit, 00:04:20.100 --> 00:04:24.180 you aren't greeted with open arms. No. You're 00:04:24.180 --> 00:04:26.420 usually greeted with pitchforks. Or lawsuits. 00:04:26.939 --> 00:04:29.259 That's the more modern version of the pitchfork. 00:04:29.519 --> 00:04:33.860 Why? What is the visceral reaction against this? 00:04:33.980 --> 00:04:36.160 Usually the argument is it's going to ruin the 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:37.899 neighborhood or it's going to bankrupt the town. 00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:40.339 The economic argument is usually the loudest. 00:04:40.379 --> 00:04:42.399 It's the one people feel most comfortable saying 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:45.100 out loud. Existing homeowners often believe that 00:04:45.100 --> 00:04:47.300 high -density housing will drain local resources. 00:04:47.959 --> 00:04:51.000 More kids in the schools, more cars on the roads, 00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:53.319 more strain on the police and fire departments. 00:04:53.480 --> 00:04:56.000 They see it as a net negative. Yes. They assume 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:57.980 that these new residents will cost the city more 00:04:57.980 --> 00:05:00.019 than they pay in taxes. And it feels intuitive, 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:02.620 right? I mean, if I have a house on a quarter 00:05:02.620 --> 00:05:05.139 acre lot and next door you build a complex with 00:05:05.139 --> 00:05:08.220 20 families on a quarter acre lot, surely those 00:05:08.220 --> 00:05:10.600 20 families are going to use 20 times the services. 00:05:10.899 --> 00:05:13.399 They might use more services in absolute terms. 00:05:13.480 --> 00:05:17.060 That's true. But the per capita math and more 00:05:17.060 --> 00:05:19.540 importantly, the per acre math tells a completely 00:05:19.540 --> 00:05:22.439 different story. This is the concept of beneficial 00:05:22.439 --> 00:05:24.959 fiscal externalities. All right. Walk me through 00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:27.069 the math. Because I think most people, myself 00:05:27.069 --> 00:05:29.870 included, assume single -family homes are the 00:05:29.870 --> 00:05:33.089 gold standard for a city's tax base. That's what 00:05:33.089 --> 00:05:35.269 you want, right? Big houses, big property tax 00:05:35.269 --> 00:05:37.910 bills. It's actually the opposite in most cases. 00:05:37.970 --> 00:05:40.810 Think about infrastructure. Roads, sewer lines, 00:05:41.029 --> 00:05:43.009 water pipes, electrical grids, these are linear 00:05:43.009 --> 00:05:45.569 assets. You pay for them by the mile, by the 00:05:45.569 --> 00:05:48.089 foot. Okay. If you have a street with huge lots 00:05:48.089 --> 00:05:50.970 and houses spread far apart, you might have 50 00:05:50.970 --> 00:05:54.329 feet. of road, sewer, and water line for just 00:05:54.329 --> 00:05:56.709 one taxpaying household. Right. And that one 00:05:56.709 --> 00:05:59.310 family has to generate enough tax revenue to 00:05:59.310 --> 00:06:02.250 maintain that 50 feet of infrastructure forever. 00:06:02.629 --> 00:06:05.529 The repaving, the pipe replacement. Exactly. 00:06:05.670 --> 00:06:08.589 Forever. Now take that same 50 feet of road frontage 00:06:08.589 --> 00:06:10.629 and put up a four -story apartment building with 00:06:10.629 --> 00:06:13.129 eight units. Now you have eight households paying 00:06:13.129 --> 00:06:16.069 property taxes to support that same 50 feet of 00:06:16.069 --> 00:06:18.500 pipe and asphalt. The infrastructure cost per 00:06:18.500 --> 00:06:21.240 person plummets. The revenue per acre for the 00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:23.920 city skyrockets. So the single family home is 00:06:23.920 --> 00:06:26.680 actually... A luxury item for the city, like 00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:28.800 the city is subsidizing that spread out lifestyle. 00:06:29.100 --> 00:06:32.079 In many cases, yes. The research from groups 00:06:32.079 --> 00:06:34.079 that study municipal finance is pretty clear 00:06:34.079 --> 00:06:37.100 on this. Low density suburbs often don't generate 00:06:37.100 --> 00:06:39.879 enough tax revenue to cover their own long term 00:06:39.879 --> 00:06:42.100 infrastructure replacement costs. So where does 00:06:42.100 --> 00:06:44.360 the money come from? They essentially rely on 00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:46.459 the high density commercial and residential cores 00:06:46.459 --> 00:06:49.860 to subsidize their roads and pipes. The Walmart. 00:06:50.350 --> 00:06:52.350 the office park, and the apartment building are 00:06:52.350 --> 00:06:54.629 paying to fix the pipes in the leafy suburbs. 00:06:54.910 --> 00:06:57.730 That is a massive flip of the script. The person 00:06:57.730 --> 00:06:59.730 in the apartment building is actually subsidizing 00:06:59.730 --> 00:07:01.970 the person in the big house with the yard. From 00:07:01.970 --> 00:07:04.910 a revenue per acre standpoint, absolutely. Multi 00:07:04.910 --> 00:07:07.189 -family housing is a cash cow for municipalities. 00:07:07.569 --> 00:07:09.329 It allows you to provide services efficiently, 00:07:09.550 --> 00:07:13.350 fire, police, garbage collection. It's all cheaper 00:07:13.350 --> 00:07:15.629 per household when people are closer together. 00:07:15.970 --> 00:07:17.990 Okay, so the economic argument against them is 00:07:17.990 --> 00:07:20.959 shaky at best. Very shaky. What about the safety 00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:23.339 argument? I feel like this one is deeply ingrained 00:07:23.339 --> 00:07:25.699 in pop culture, you know, the towering inferno. 00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:28.579 If I live in a box surrounded by other people's 00:07:28.579 --> 00:07:30.660 boxes and someone falls asleep with a cigarette, 00:07:30.899 --> 00:07:33.980 aren't we all doomed? This is a classic example 00:07:33.980 --> 00:07:36.800 of the availability heuristic. We see a dramatic 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:40.379 fire on the news, a huge apartment block ablaze, 00:07:40.420 --> 00:07:42.899 and we assume it's the norm. Because it's a memorable 00:07:42.899 --> 00:07:46.560 image. Exactly. But if you look at the 2025 Pew 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:49.220 data provided in our source stack, it's a myth. 00:07:50.099 --> 00:07:52.000 Modern multifamily buildings are statistically 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:54.620 safer than single -family homes regarding fire. 00:07:54.860 --> 00:07:57.180 How is that possible? I can jump out the window 00:07:57.180 --> 00:07:58.720 of my house. I can't jump out the window of the 00:07:58.720 --> 00:08:01.759 10th floor. True. But in a modern single -family 00:08:01.759 --> 00:08:04.939 home, you have very few passive defenses. The 00:08:04.939 --> 00:08:07.160 wood frame is flammable. The layout is open. 00:08:07.339 --> 00:08:09.839 You have drywall that lasts maybe 20 minutes 00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:12.540 in a fire. And you almost never have sprinklers 00:08:12.540 --> 00:08:14.980 unless you're very wealthy. Okay. In a modern 00:08:14.980 --> 00:08:16.920 multifamily building, the engineering is completely 00:08:16.920 --> 00:08:18.500 different. The building codes are incredibly 00:08:18.500 --> 00:08:21.519 strict. You have concrete fire separations between 00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:25.160 units, so a fire in Unit 402 stays in Unit 402 00:08:25.160 --> 00:08:27.699 for hours before spreading. It's compartmentalized. 00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:30.939 Exactly. It's designed to contain the fire to 00:08:30.939 --> 00:08:34.059 the unit of origin. Plus, you have mandatory 00:08:34.059 --> 00:08:37.019 sprinkler systems, pressurized stairwells that 00:08:37.019 --> 00:08:40.220 keep smoke out so you can escape, and alarm systems 00:08:40.220 --> 00:08:42.220 that automatically dial the fire department. 00:08:42.379 --> 00:08:44.340 That's a good point. In a single -family home, 00:08:44.440 --> 00:08:46.820 if your smoke detector goes off, it just makes 00:08:46.820 --> 00:08:49.779 noise. Right. It wakes you up, hopefully. In 00:08:49.779 --> 00:08:53.559 a modern MDU, it summons professional help. The 00:08:53.559 --> 00:08:55.639 data shows that the death rate from fires is 00:08:55.639 --> 00:08:58.100 significantly lower in these high -density environments. 00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:01.299 So our intuition is failing us again. We see 00:09:01.299 --> 00:09:04.159 density as danger, but density actually allows 00:09:04.159 --> 00:09:06.399 for professional -grade safety systems that you 00:09:06.399 --> 00:09:08.960 just can't afford in a private house. Precisely. 00:09:09.220 --> 00:09:11.980 We are scared of the stranger's negligence. But 00:09:11.980 --> 00:09:13.860 we forget about the engineering that mitigates 00:09:13.860 --> 00:09:16.019 it. We trust our own habits more than we trust 00:09:16.019 --> 00:09:18.879 concrete and sprinklers. That makes sense. Okay, 00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:21.740 let's pivot to history. Because looking at some 00:09:21.740 --> 00:09:23.700 of these modern buildings, specifically the ones 00:09:23.700 --> 00:09:25.820 popping up in every American city right now, 00:09:25.940 --> 00:09:29.299 you'd think stacking people was a new idea. But 00:09:29.299 --> 00:09:31.639 this goes back way, way before the elevator, 00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:35.230 doesn't it? Oh, long before. As long as there 00:09:35.230 --> 00:09:37.250 have been cities with limited walls, there have 00:09:37.250 --> 00:09:39.529 been apartments. If we look at ancient Rome, 00:09:39.730 --> 00:09:42.889 the vast majority of the population, maybe 90%, 00:09:42.889 --> 00:09:46.990 lived in apartment blocks called insuli. Insuli. 00:09:47.070 --> 00:09:49.990 That means islands, right? Yes. They were islands 00:09:49.990 --> 00:09:52.730 of humanity in the urban sea. And these weren't 00:09:52.730 --> 00:09:55.090 small. They were routinely six or seven stories 00:09:55.090 --> 00:09:57.490 high. Some even went higher before they were 00:09:57.490 --> 00:10:01.029 regulated. Six stories in ancient Rome without 00:10:01.029 --> 00:10:04.039 steel. Without modern concrete, that sounds terrifying. 00:10:04.360 --> 00:10:06.980 It was. It absolutely was. They were built of 00:10:06.980 --> 00:10:09.820 timber and mud brick, often by speculative landlords, 00:10:10.179 --> 00:10:12.840 Crassus was famous for this, who wanted to maximize 00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:15.559 rent by cutting corners on construction. The 00:10:15.559 --> 00:10:18.120 slumlords of the ancient world. Exactly. They 00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:20.919 were prone to collapse and fire. The poet Juvenal 00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:22.600 wrote about how you couldn't sleep in Rome for 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:24.899 fear of either a fire starting below you or your 00:10:24.899 --> 00:10:26.940 neighbor's building collapsing onto yours. And 00:10:26.940 --> 00:10:28.980 I'm imagining the walk up to the sixth floor, 00:10:29.159 --> 00:10:32.399 no elevator, carrying your water, probably smelling 00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:34.159 your neighbor's cooking and everything else. 00:10:34.379 --> 00:10:37.259 It was a tough life. And the social hierarchy 00:10:37.259 --> 00:10:41.419 was vertical. The lower floors, the piano nobile. 00:10:41.799 --> 00:10:44.240 were for the wealthier tenants. Why? You didn't 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:46.259 have to climb as far, the apartments were larger, 00:10:46.399 --> 00:10:49.460 and in case of fire, you could get out. The higher 00:10:49.460 --> 00:10:52.220 you went, the smaller the rooms got, the shabbier 00:10:52.220 --> 00:10:54.320 the construction and the poorer the tenant. So 00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:56.659 it's the exact opposite of the modern penthouse. 00:10:56.899 --> 00:10:58.919 The best address was on the first floor, not 00:10:58.919 --> 00:11:01.340 the top. The penthouse used to be the cheap seat. 00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:04.200 It's the invention of the elevator that completely 00:11:04.200 --> 00:11:06.759 inverted that dynamic. That's fascinating. And 00:11:06.759 --> 00:11:09.080 this isn't just a Roman thing. Not at all. We 00:11:09.080 --> 00:11:11.940 see this pattern globally. Look at Shibam in 00:11:11.940 --> 00:11:14.100 Yemen. I saw photos of this. It looks like a 00:11:14.100 --> 00:11:16.399 mirage. It's literally skyscrapers made of mud. 00:11:16.620 --> 00:11:19.240 They call it the Manhattan of the desert. These 00:11:19.240 --> 00:11:21.740 are adobe towers. Some are 500 years old, reaching 00:11:21.740 --> 00:11:25.139 7, 8, even 11 stories high. How do they not just 00:11:25.139 --> 00:11:27.820 dissolve in the rain? The mud brick is constantly 00:11:27.820 --> 00:11:31.419 maintained. They re -plaster the exteriors. But 00:11:31.419 --> 00:11:34.220 here, the density wasn't just about space. It 00:11:34.220 --> 00:11:37.600 was about defense. By building vertical and clustering 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:40.460 together, the city became a fortress wall against 00:11:40.460 --> 00:11:43.080 Bedouin raids. So the apartment building is also 00:11:43.080 --> 00:11:45.879 a castle. In a sense. And you see other examples. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:48.620 The malice houses in Madrid or the Casbah in 00:11:48.620 --> 00:11:51.500 Algiers. Humanity has always found ways to stack 00:11:51.500 --> 00:11:54.360 up when horizontal expansion wasn't an option. 00:11:54.779 --> 00:11:57.519 So if this is such a natural human adaptation 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:01.149 to city life. Why is it illegal to build it in 00:12:01.149 --> 00:12:03.049 so much of the United States? And I don't use 00:12:03.049 --> 00:12:05.830 the word illegal lightly. In many cities on the 00:12:05.830 --> 00:12:07.870 majority of the residential land, you literally 00:12:07.870 --> 00:12:11.409 cannot build anything other than a detached Singh 00:12:11.409 --> 00:12:13.889 family home. This brings us to the weaponization 00:12:13.889 --> 00:12:16.870 of zoning. We have to be clear based on the historical 00:12:16.870 --> 00:12:19.929 sources. Zoning didn't start purely as a way 00:12:19.929 --> 00:12:22.490 to separate factories from homes, which is. the 00:12:22.490 --> 00:12:24.669 benevolent explanation you learn in school. That's 00:12:24.669 --> 00:12:26.730 the story, right? We don't want a loud, smoky 00:12:26.730 --> 00:12:28.909 factory next to where our kids play. And that 00:12:28.909 --> 00:12:31.769 was part of it. But in the U .S. context, early 00:12:31.769 --> 00:12:34.850 zoning and the ban on multifamily housing were 00:12:34.850 --> 00:12:37.820 explicitly designed to segregate. The sources 00:12:37.820 --> 00:12:40.000 are pretty blunt about this. It wasn't just about 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:43.220 character in an architectural sense. No. In the 00:12:43.220 --> 00:12:45.700 early 20th century, you couldn't legally say 00:12:45.700 --> 00:12:48.139 we don't want African -Americans or immigrants 00:12:48.139 --> 00:12:50.779 in this neighborhood. The Supreme Court struck 00:12:50.779 --> 00:12:54.700 down racial zoning in 1917. OK. So cities and 00:12:54.700 --> 00:12:57.700 developers needed a new tool. You could say we 00:12:57.700 --> 00:12:59.200 don't want apartment buildings in this neighborhood. 00:12:59.419 --> 00:13:01.639 And since racial minorities and lower income 00:13:01.639 --> 00:13:03.679 workers were the primary residents of apartment 00:13:03.679 --> 00:13:07.129 buildings, the ban on the structure. became a 00:13:07.129 --> 00:13:09.450 proxy for a ban on the people. It's a proxy war. 00:13:09.570 --> 00:13:11.990 You ban the building type to ban the demographic 00:13:11.990 --> 00:13:14.889 you associate with it. Correct. And the legal 00:13:14.889 --> 00:13:17.470 language was barely coded. People would argue 00:13:17.470 --> 00:13:19.570 in court that apartment buildings brought parasites 00:13:19.570 --> 00:13:22.309 into a neighborhood. It was a way to maintain 00:13:22.309 --> 00:13:25.149 class and racial homogeneity without ever mentioning 00:13:25.149 --> 00:13:27.110 race. And we are still living with that legacy. 00:13:27.509 --> 00:13:30.789 Deeply. It's known as exclusionary zoning. It 00:13:30.789 --> 00:13:34.389 requires large lot sizes, deep setbacks, bans 00:13:34.389 --> 00:13:37.179 anything that shares a wall. It artificially 00:13:37.179 --> 00:13:39.960 inflates the cost of housing to ensure only a 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:42.259 certain economic class can even get a foot in 00:13:42.259 --> 00:13:44.519 the door. And there was a note in the research 00:13:44.519 --> 00:13:47.659 connecting this to labor markets. It frames zoning 00:13:47.659 --> 00:13:50.480 as a form of labor regulation. Can you explain 00:13:50.480 --> 00:13:52.980 that? Yeah, this is a more modern economic take 00:13:52.980 --> 00:13:55.779 on it. Think about a booming city like San Francisco 00:13:55.779 --> 00:13:58.059 or New York or Boston. There are high paying 00:13:58.059 --> 00:14:01.279 jobs there. But if you ban new multifamily housing, 00:14:01.419 --> 00:14:04.100 you artificially cap the number of people who 00:14:04.100 --> 00:14:05.820 can live there. You create a housing shortage. 00:14:05.919 --> 00:14:08.700 You create a massive housing shortage. This means 00:14:08.700 --> 00:14:11.080 a teacher, a firefighter, a barista, a nurse. 00:14:11.559 --> 00:14:13.960 All essential workers simply cannot afford to 00:14:13.960 --> 00:14:16.220 live anywhere near where they work. You are effectively 00:14:16.220 --> 00:14:19.440 regulating the labor market by physically walling 00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:21.679 off the workforce for the jobs. Which destroys 00:14:21.679 --> 00:14:23.740 the local economy in the long run, right? Because 00:14:23.740 --> 00:14:25.899 if the barista has to commute two hours, eventually 00:14:25.899 --> 00:14:28.860 there are no baristas. Or the price of coffee 00:14:28.860 --> 00:14:31.500 goes up to $15 to cover the wage premium needed 00:14:31.500 --> 00:14:33.779 to get someone to commute that far. It creates 00:14:33.779 --> 00:14:36.580 a brittle, expensive, and inequitable economy. 00:14:36.899 --> 00:14:39.389 Wow. Okay, I want to step away from the politics 00:14:39.389 --> 00:14:41.009 for a second and go on a bit of a world tour. 00:14:41.210 --> 00:14:43.269 Yeah. Because one thing I loved about this research 00:14:43.269 --> 00:14:46.110 is seeing how different cultures solve this stacking 00:14:46.110 --> 00:14:48.889 problem. It seems like the form the building 00:14:48.889 --> 00:14:51.429 takes depends entirely on what problem they are 00:14:51.429 --> 00:14:53.529 trying to solve. It's a mix of problem solving 00:14:53.529 --> 00:14:56.750 and cultural values. Geography, economy, history, 00:14:56.870 --> 00:15:00.149 and ideology all shape the building. It's architectural 00:15:00.149 --> 00:15:03.029 DNA. Let's start with the problem of extreme 00:15:03.029 --> 00:15:06.190 lack of space. That has to be Hong Kong. The 00:15:06.190 --> 00:15:08.809 densest place on earth, yeah. In Hong Kong, you 00:15:08.809 --> 00:15:11.169 see the evolution of the stack in real time. 00:15:11.769 --> 00:15:13.909 Historically, you had the Tong Lao. Describe 00:15:13.909 --> 00:15:15.610 that for me. What does it look and feel like? 00:15:15.830 --> 00:15:18.769 The Tong Lao is a type of shop house. It's usually 00:15:18.769 --> 00:15:21.649 low rise, maybe three to five stories. No elevator, 00:15:21.750 --> 00:15:24.809 no garage. The ground floor is a shop, a restaurant, 00:15:25.049 --> 00:15:27.789 a hardware store, a tailor. And the family lives 00:15:27.789 --> 00:15:30.269 above it, often in very cramped conditions. So 00:15:30.269 --> 00:15:33.509 it's mixed use by default. Completely. It creates 00:15:33.509 --> 00:15:37.250 a very vibrant, chaotic street life because the 00:15:37.250 --> 00:15:39.789 living and the commerce are fused together. The 00:15:39.789 --> 00:15:42.370 buildings are narrow, deep, and they often have 00:15:42.370 --> 00:15:44.710 these illegal balconies and additions hanging 00:15:44.710 --> 00:15:46.549 off them. But those are disappearing, right? 00:15:46.669 --> 00:15:48.730 I read that. They're being demolished rapidly. 00:15:49.289 --> 00:15:51.269 In the search material, they mention the ones 00:15:51.269 --> 00:15:53.909 near the old Kai Tok airport. Those buildings 00:15:53.909 --> 00:15:56.250 had to be short because planes were flying right 00:15:56.250 --> 00:15:58.529 over the rooftops. It was famous for it. You 00:15:58.529 --> 00:16:00.610 could practically see what people were watching 00:16:00.610 --> 00:16:03.659 on TV. Pretty much. Now that the airport moved, 00:16:03.980 --> 00:16:06.340 those height limits are gone, and developers 00:16:06.340 --> 00:16:08.659 are tearing down entire blocks of tonglos to 00:16:08.659 --> 00:16:11.120 build towers. And that leads to the toothpick 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:13.620 apartment, which is such a great evocative name. 00:16:13.799 --> 00:16:16.960 It really is. Imagine a building footprint that 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:19.600 is tiny. Maybe the size is just one of those 00:16:19.600 --> 00:16:23.480 old tonglos, but they extruded upward 20 or 30 00:16:23.480 --> 00:16:25.600 stories. So it looks like a needle. A needle 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:28.389 sticking out of the urban fabric. It stands tall 00:16:28.389 --> 00:16:30.769 and skinny, surrounded by the shorter, older 00:16:30.769 --> 00:16:33.549 buildings. Usually is one apartment per floor 00:16:33.549 --> 00:16:36.169 to maximize window access on the tiny lot. Which 00:16:36.169 --> 00:16:39.269 sounds luxurious, private elevator lobby, but 00:16:39.269 --> 00:16:42.690 also incredibly isolating and probably expensive. 00:16:43.090 --> 00:16:45.669 And often claustrophobic. You're surrounded by 00:16:45.669 --> 00:16:48.889 other towers. But it solves the problem. How 00:16:48.889 --> 00:16:50.970 do you add density when you only have a postage 00:16:50.970 --> 00:16:53.750 stamp of land? You go up drastically. Now let's 00:16:53.750 --> 00:16:56.399 look at a different problem. The blur of work 00:16:56.399 --> 00:16:59.419 and life. We see this in South Korea with the 00:16:59.419 --> 00:17:01.740 office tell. The office tell, a portmanteau of 00:17:01.740 --> 00:17:04.740 office and hotel, is fascinating because it addresses 00:17:04.740 --> 00:17:07.819 the intense work culture of Seoul. These are 00:17:07.819 --> 00:17:09.819 units designed to be legal for both residential 00:17:09.819 --> 00:17:12.299 and commercial use. So I could run my business 00:17:12.299 --> 00:17:14.339 out of it during the day and sleep there at night. 00:17:14.500 --> 00:17:16.960 That's the idea. You might have a desk and a 00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:18.900 meeting table in the same room as your bed and 00:17:18.900 --> 00:17:21.359 kitchenette. The furniture is often convertible. 00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:23.759 The bed folds into the wall to become a couch. 00:17:23.940 --> 00:17:26.140 It's the ultimate working -from -home setup, 00:17:26.259 --> 00:17:28.440 but built into the architecture from the start. 00:17:28.559 --> 00:17:30.160 Removes the friction of the commute entirely. 00:17:30.660 --> 00:17:32.880 It's for the young professional who practically 00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:36.019 lives at work anyway. It acknowledges the reality 00:17:36.019 --> 00:17:38.799 of the modern economy in a way that Western zoning, 00:17:38.940 --> 00:17:42.019 which strictly separates home and office, often 00:17:42.019 --> 00:17:45.660 doesn't. Let's move over to India. I was intrigued 00:17:45.660 --> 00:17:48.319 by the term Vatara in Karnataka. Yeah, the Vatara 00:17:48.319 --> 00:17:50.259 is interesting. It's specific to urban areas 00:17:50.259 --> 00:17:53.220 in that state. Think of it as a two -story complex 00:17:53.220 --> 00:17:56.440 with homes arranged in a row. It's similar to 00:17:56.440 --> 00:17:59.500 a low -rise apartment complex, but with a very 00:17:59.500 --> 00:18:03.099 particular local style. It's a step up from a 00:18:03.099 --> 00:18:05.720 shared tenement, but more communal than a detached 00:18:05.720 --> 00:18:08.440 house. So it's a kind of middle -density solution. 00:18:08.859 --> 00:18:11.279 Exactly. It's that missing middle housing that 00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:13.200 a lot of urbanists in the West are trying to 00:18:13.200 --> 00:18:16.109 bring back. Moving to Europe, we see a housing 00:18:16.109 --> 00:18:19.650 type born from pure ideology, the Eastern Bloc. 00:18:19.789 --> 00:18:22.089 The Plattenbau. Just saying the word feels heavy. 00:18:22.390 --> 00:18:24.809 Plattenbau. You mean slab building or panel building? 00:18:24.950 --> 00:18:27.890 You see these in East Germany and the panel lock 00:18:27.890 --> 00:18:30.990 in Czechia and Slovakia. These are the massive 00:18:30.990 --> 00:18:33.789 gray concrete towers built during the communist 00:18:33.789 --> 00:18:36.170 era. They get a bad rap. We usually use them 00:18:36.170 --> 00:18:39.089 as shorthand for dystopia in movies. Aesthetically, 00:18:39.150 --> 00:18:41.450 they are stark. There's no denying that. But 00:18:41.450 --> 00:18:43.730 we have to give them credit. They solved a massive 00:18:43.730 --> 00:18:46.349 housing crisis after World War II. Cities were 00:18:46.349 --> 00:18:48.869 rubble. So it was a practical solution. It was 00:18:48.869 --> 00:18:52.049 industrial efficiency applied to the home. They 00:18:52.049 --> 00:18:54.589 used prefabricated concrete panels manufactured 00:18:54.589 --> 00:18:58.190 in factories and assembled on -site, like, giant 00:18:58.190 --> 00:19:01.089 Lego sets. The goal wasn't individuality or beauty. 00:19:01.269 --> 00:19:04.329 It was equality in speed. Everyone gets a unit. 00:19:04.450 --> 00:19:06.690 Everyone gets central heat. Everyone gets a roof. 00:19:06.930 --> 00:19:09.880 Exactly. And interestingly, today... Many of 00:19:09.880 --> 00:19:11.680 these are being renovated and are actually quite 00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:14.160 popular. They're structurally sound. The apartments 00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:16.519 are surprisingly spacious. And the green spaces 00:19:16.519 --> 00:19:18.279 between the buildings, which were part of the 00:19:18.279 --> 00:19:22.180 original master plan, are now mature parks. So 00:19:22.180 --> 00:19:24.619 time has been kind to them in a way. In some 00:19:24.619 --> 00:19:27.640 ways, yes. The stigma is fading for a new generation 00:19:27.640 --> 00:19:30.240 that just sees them as affordable housing with 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:32.559 good transit links. Let's jump across the channel 00:19:32.559 --> 00:19:35.450 to the UK. Here, the problem wasn't so much ideology. 00:19:35.670 --> 00:19:38.609 It was the industrial squeeze. The sheer number 00:19:38.609 --> 00:19:41.009 of people flooding into cities for factory work 00:19:41.009 --> 00:19:43.690 created some really specific and sometimes grim 00:19:43.690 --> 00:19:46.990 housing types. The UK has a very rich taxonomy 00:19:46.990 --> 00:19:49.609 of multifamily housing. It's fascinating. You 00:19:49.609 --> 00:19:52.150 have the bedsit, which is iconic. The bedsit 00:19:52.150 --> 00:19:54.789 feels like the setting of every sad British song 00:19:54.789 --> 00:19:57.650 from the 1980s. It is the bottom rung of the 00:19:57.650 --> 00:20:01.170 ladder, a bedsitting room. You take a large Victorian 00:20:01.170 --> 00:20:03.950 house and chop it up. You get one room that serves 00:20:03.950 --> 00:20:06.890 as your bedroom, living room, and often has a 00:20:06.890 --> 00:20:09.569 little kitchenette, a hot plate, and a mini fridge 00:20:09.569 --> 00:20:13.549 in the corner. But, and here's the friction point, 00:20:13.710 --> 00:20:15.829 you share the bathroom down the hall with five 00:20:15.829 --> 00:20:18.329 other strangers. That lack of private plumbing 00:20:18.329 --> 00:20:20.869 is the defining feature. It's what makes it a 00:20:20.869 --> 00:20:23.390 bedsit and not a studio. And it's why they are 00:20:23.390 --> 00:20:26.359 disappearing, right? It is. Tenancy reform since 00:20:26.359 --> 00:20:29.180 the 80s and rising property prices have pushed 00:20:29.180 --> 00:20:32.539 landlords to squeeze tiny, often windowless bathrooms 00:20:32.539 --> 00:20:35.539 into the units to create self -contained studios. 00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:38.700 The shared bathroom bed sit is becoming a relic. 00:20:38.740 --> 00:20:40.460 But then you have something really clever like 00:20:40.460 --> 00:20:42.920 the Tyneside Flat in northeast England. I love 00:20:42.920 --> 00:20:44.920 the Tyneside Flat. It's architecturally brilliant. 00:20:45.079 --> 00:20:47.240 It solves the social problem. How do you give 00:20:47.240 --> 00:20:49.660 people density without making them feel like 00:20:49.660 --> 00:20:51.980 they live in an ant farm? How does it work? From 00:20:51.980 --> 00:20:53.680 the street, it looks like a standard terraced 00:20:53.680 --> 00:20:55.529 house. What Americans would call a row house. 00:20:56.069 --> 00:20:58.609 Two stories high. But it's actually two separate 00:20:58.609 --> 00:21:01.250 flats, one on the ground floor, one on top. Okay, 00:21:01.329 --> 00:21:03.549 that's a duplex. We have those. Ah, but here's 00:21:03.549 --> 00:21:06.730 the genius. There is no shared lobby. You have 00:21:06.730 --> 00:21:09.089 two front doors on the street, side by side. 00:21:09.250 --> 00:21:11.289 Wait, really? So even if I live upstairs, I have 00:21:11.289 --> 00:21:13.769 my own front door opening to the sidewalk? Yes. 00:21:14.220 --> 00:21:16.599 You open your door and immediately go up a private 00:21:16.599 --> 00:21:19.480 staircase that runs behind the ground floor flat's 00:21:19.480 --> 00:21:22.180 front rooms. It preserves the illusion of owning 00:21:22.180 --> 00:21:25.240 the house. You don't have to awkwardly nod at 00:21:25.240 --> 00:21:27.759 your neighbor in a communal hallway. It maintains 00:21:27.759 --> 00:21:30.299 that British sense of privacy within a dense 00:21:30.299 --> 00:21:33.119 structure. That's amazing. I wish we had more 00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:35.279 of that here. Me too. And then the sources mention 00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:37.759 the clothes in Glasgow and the court in Liverpool. 00:21:38.099 --> 00:21:41.430 These sound much grimmer. They were. These are 00:21:41.430 --> 00:21:43.769 from the peak of the Industrial Revolution, 1800 00:21:43.769 --> 00:21:47.549 to 1870. The close in Glasgow refers to these 00:21:47.549 --> 00:21:49.650 high -density tenements, three or four stories, 00:21:49.809 --> 00:21:51.950 built around a cul -de -sac or a shared courtyard. 00:21:52.269 --> 00:21:54.789 Cramped. Very. And the court was even worse. 00:21:54.990 --> 00:21:57.630 In places like Liverpool and Leeds, these were 00:21:57.630 --> 00:21:59.589 back -to -back terrace houses built around a 00:21:59.589 --> 00:22:02.150 short, dead -end alley. No through -ventilation, 00:22:02.269 --> 00:22:04.869 shared water pumps, overflowing privies. They 00:22:04.869 --> 00:22:07.680 were incubators for disease. So we see both the 00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:11.500 ingenuity and the desperation of industrial housing. 00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:13.240 It's the full spectrum. Okay, let's bring it 00:22:13.240 --> 00:22:15.980 back to North America. We have some incredibly 00:22:15.980 --> 00:22:19.940 strange mutations of multifamily housing. But 00:22:19.940 --> 00:22:21.940 before we get to the weird stuff, we need to 00:22:21.940 --> 00:22:24.759 talk about the baseline. We need to talk about 00:22:24.759 --> 00:22:28.119 the row house. The row house, or townhouse, is 00:22:28.119 --> 00:22:30.779 the ancestor of most American urban density. 00:22:31.099 --> 00:22:33.839 It's the side -by -side stack. Is there a difference 00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:36.420 between a row house, a townhouse, and a brownstone? 00:22:36.500 --> 00:22:39.180 Or is this just real estate marketing? It's mostly 00:22:39.180 --> 00:22:41.680 marketing and geography at this point. Structurally, 00:22:41.779 --> 00:22:44.440 they are the same. Narrow, multi -story houses 00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:48.019 sharing sidewalls. Brownstone is just a New York 00:22:48.019 --> 00:22:51.299 City -specific term for a row house clad in Triassic 00:22:51.299 --> 00:22:53.299 sandstone from New Jersey. So it's about the 00:22:53.299 --> 00:22:56.150 facade material. Exactly. And townhouse historically 00:22:56.150 --> 00:22:58.710 meant a rich family's city residence as opposed 00:22:58.710 --> 00:23:01.250 to their country house. But now developers use 00:23:01.250 --> 00:23:04.309 it to make new -build row houses sound fancy. 00:23:04.589 --> 00:23:06.730 Okay, so that's the standard. But in New England, 00:23:06.849 --> 00:23:08.849 they took the concept of stacking and created 00:23:08.849 --> 00:23:11.529 something unique. Enter the triple -decker. The 00:23:11.529 --> 00:23:13.529 triple -decker is legendary in Massachusetts 00:23:13.529 --> 00:23:16.269 and Rhode Island. It's essentially a detached 00:23:16.269 --> 00:23:19.630 timber frame house. But it has three identical 00:23:19.630 --> 00:23:22.170 sprawling apartments stacked one on top of the 00:23:22.170 --> 00:23:24.410 other, usually with big porches on the front. 00:23:24.720 --> 00:23:28.019 Why did this specific form take off there? It 00:23:28.019 --> 00:23:31.559 was the immigrant dream machine. You, an Irish 00:23:31.559 --> 00:23:34.059 or Italian or Polish factory worker in the late 00:23:34.059 --> 00:23:37.619 19th century, save up money. You buy a plot of 00:23:37.619 --> 00:23:40.119 land and build a triple -ducker. Okay. You live 00:23:40.119 --> 00:23:42.839 in the middle floor. You rent the top floor to 00:23:42.839 --> 00:23:44.880 a cousin or another family from your village 00:23:44.880 --> 00:23:47.680 to help pay the mortgage. And maybe your aging 00:23:47.680 --> 00:23:49.380 parents live on the bottom floor so they don't 00:23:49.380 --> 00:23:51.420 have to climb stairs. It's an intergenerational 00:23:51.420 --> 00:23:54.359 wealth -building tool. Exactly. It allowed working 00:23:54.359 --> 00:23:56.660 class families to become landlords and build 00:23:56.660 --> 00:23:59.359 equity. It's a tragedy that so many towns banned 00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:01.859 them in the 20th century, calling them fire traps 00:24:01.859 --> 00:24:04.099 and tenements. Which brings us to the six pack, 00:24:04.319 --> 00:24:06.660 which sounds like beer, but I'm guessing it's 00:24:06.660 --> 00:24:09.119 not. In the New England definition, a six pack 00:24:09.119 --> 00:24:11.599 is just two triple deckers pushed together, sharing 00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:14.839 a central party wall. Six units, one building. 00:24:15.200 --> 00:24:18.000 Simple. But wait, the notes say if I go to Australia 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:19.940 and asked for a six pack, I get something totally 00:24:19.940 --> 00:24:22.549 different. You do. In Australia, a six -pack 00:24:22.549 --> 00:24:25.930 refers to those ubiquitous, usually pretty ugly 00:24:25.930 --> 00:24:29.230 brick apartment blocks from the 1960s and 70s. 00:24:29.349 --> 00:24:31.930 Usually two or three stories, a walk -up, very 00:24:31.930 --> 00:24:34.369 generic styling. They might have four, six, or 00:24:34.369 --> 00:24:37.289 eight apartments. They are the vanilla of Australian 00:24:37.289 --> 00:24:39.470 housing. I love how language morphs like that. 00:24:39.630 --> 00:24:43.390 Okay, moving to Chicago. The four plus one. This 00:24:43.390 --> 00:24:45.289 sounds like a math problem. It's a loophole problem. 00:24:45.410 --> 00:24:48.170 Yeah. In the 1960s and 70s, Chicago zoning had 00:24:48.170 --> 00:24:50.869 height limits for wood frame buildings and also 00:24:50.869 --> 00:24:53.349 had parking requirements. Developers figured 00:24:53.349 --> 00:24:55.390 out that if they raised the first floor up half 00:24:55.390 --> 00:24:57.730 a level, they could tuck a parking garage underneath. 00:24:58.029 --> 00:25:00.890 So the building's on stilts? Kind of. You have 00:25:00.890 --> 00:25:03.150 a concrete or masonry base. That's the parking, 00:25:03.309 --> 00:25:05.910 the plus one. Then you put four stories of cheap 00:25:05.910 --> 00:25:08.079 wood frame apartments on top of it. And let me 00:25:08.079 --> 00:25:10.839 guess, the lobby is just a weird staircase down 00:25:10.839 --> 00:25:13.299 to the parking garage. It's usually an awkward 00:25:13.299 --> 00:25:15.059 half -flight of stairs up to the first floor. 00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:17.859 They are aesthetically challenged. They've been 00:25:17.859 --> 00:25:20.759 called the ugliest buildings in Chicago. But 00:25:20.759 --> 00:25:22.759 they provided a ton of affordable housing on 00:25:22.759 --> 00:25:25.099 the north side at the time. And speaking of aesthetically 00:25:25.099 --> 00:25:27.539 challenged, we have to talk about Los Angeles 00:25:27.539 --> 00:25:31.920 and the dingbat. Ah, the dingbat. An icon of 00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:35.480 mid -century L .A., it is the direct result of 00:25:35.480 --> 00:25:38.319 the car taking over the city. Describe a dingbat 00:25:38.319 --> 00:25:40.859 for the listener who hasn't seen one. Okay. It's 00:25:40.859 --> 00:25:43.400 a two - or three -story boxy building, usually 00:25:43.400 --> 00:25:46.319 covered in stucco. The entire ground floor frontage 00:25:46.319 --> 00:25:49.059 is just carport. You pull your car right in under 00:25:49.059 --> 00:25:51.299 the overhanging apartment. It makes the building 00:25:51.299 --> 00:25:53.819 look like it's on skinny legs. It's a soft story 00:25:53.819 --> 00:25:56.220 building, right, which is a problem in earthquakes. 00:25:56.359 --> 00:25:58.400 A huge problem. They're being retrofitted now. 00:25:58.519 --> 00:26:01.039 But the key feature is that the parking is front 00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:04.200 and center. It's not hidden. The building worships 00:26:04.200 --> 00:26:05.980 the car. And they always have those fantastic 00:26:05.980 --> 00:26:08.720 names on the front, right? The starbursts and 00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:11.599 decorative flourishes. Yes. That's where the 00:26:11.599 --> 00:26:13.599 name Dingbat comes from. Those little decorative 00:26:13.599 --> 00:26:16.279 blacks. And the cursive script on the facade. 00:26:16.579 --> 00:26:21.079 The Capri. The Tahitian. The Royal Palms. They 00:26:21.079 --> 00:26:23.380 tried to evoke a bit of Hollywood glamour for 00:26:23.380 --> 00:26:26.140 what was essentially a cheap wooden box above 00:26:26.140 --> 00:26:28.490 a parking spot. I love them. They have so much 00:26:28.490 --> 00:26:30.930 character. But they are being replaced, aren't 00:26:30.930 --> 00:26:34.109 they, by the new king of American multifamily 00:26:34.109 --> 00:26:37.529 housing, the OnePlus 5? If you live in any growing 00:26:37.529 --> 00:26:40.589 American city today, you have seen these. You 00:26:40.589 --> 00:26:41.990 might be complaining about one being built down 00:26:41.990 --> 00:26:43.589 the street right now. They're everywhere. They 00:26:43.589 --> 00:26:45.369 all look the same. Why do they all look the same? 00:26:45.410 --> 00:26:47.289 It's like this Lego block style with different 00:26:47.289 --> 00:26:49.809 colored panels. It's the building code. It's 00:26:49.809 --> 00:26:51.990 pure economics driven by the international building 00:26:51.990 --> 00:26:55.440 code. We call them five over ones. Break down 00:26:55.440 --> 00:26:58.140 that structure for me. Sure. The one on the bottom 00:26:58.140 --> 00:27:00.579 is a concrete podium that's a fireproof construction 00:27:00.579 --> 00:27:03.220 type. It usually holds the retail on the ground 00:27:03.220 --> 00:27:05.920 floor or the parking garage. On top of that podium, 00:27:06.039 --> 00:27:08.079 you are allowed by code to stack five stories 00:27:08.079 --> 00:27:11.000 of wood frame construction. Wood. Five stories 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:15.539 of wood sounds flimsy. It's engineered wood trusses, 00:27:15.539 --> 00:27:19.049 oriented strand board. And crucially, it's allowed 00:27:19.049 --> 00:27:22.289 because of modern sprinkler technology. The codes 00:27:22.289 --> 00:27:24.670 change to say, OK, you can build this tall with 00:27:24.670 --> 00:27:27.470 wood if you sprinkle the heck out of it. Wood 00:27:27.470 --> 00:27:30.589 is cheap. Concrete and steel are expensive. So 00:27:30.589 --> 00:27:32.950 developers maximize the wood. And that's why 00:27:32.950 --> 00:27:34.930 they are everywhere. It's the financial sweet 00:27:34.930 --> 00:27:37.069 spot of maximum rent for minimum construction 00:27:37.069 --> 00:27:39.369 costs. Exactly. It's the triple -decker of the 00:27:39.369 --> 00:27:42.049 21st century just on a massive corporate scale. 00:27:42.230 --> 00:27:44.569 And then there's the garlo, which I just love 00:27:44.569 --> 00:27:47.359 as a portmanteau. Garage and bungalow. How is 00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:49.319 that different from a garage apartment? A garage 00:27:49.319 --> 00:27:52.279 apartment is a living unit over the garage. A 00:27:52.279 --> 00:27:54.740 garlo has the apartment and the garage at the 00:27:54.740 --> 00:27:57.880 same level. It's a very specific, compact design. 00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:00.619 I want to go inside the walls now. We've talked 00:28:00.619 --> 00:28:03.700 about the exterior shapes and the zoning, but 00:28:03.700 --> 00:28:06.500 the way these units are laid out inside dictates 00:28:06.500 --> 00:28:09.180 how we actually live. And some of these layouts 00:28:09.180 --> 00:28:11.940 are wild. The interior geography is just as important 00:28:11.940 --> 00:28:14.559 as the zoning map. It dictates privacy and family 00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:16.500 life. Let's start with the railroad apartment. 00:28:16.660 --> 00:28:19.460 This is a classic New York tenement thing. Right. 00:28:19.900 --> 00:28:23.359 Think about a long, narrow building lot. To fit 00:28:23.359 --> 00:28:25.799 as many people as possible, they didn't waste 00:28:25.799 --> 00:28:28.700 any space on hallways. So how do you get from 00:28:28.700 --> 00:28:30.759 room to room? You walk through the other rooms. 00:28:31.039 --> 00:28:34.000 The front door opens into the living room, which 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:36.259 has a doorway into a bedroom. which has a doorway 00:28:36.259 --> 00:28:38.700 into the next bedroom, which opens into the kitchen 00:28:38.700 --> 00:28:41.240 in the back. That is a privacy nightmare. If 00:28:41.240 --> 00:28:42.759 I'm in the middle bedroom and I need a glass 00:28:42.759 --> 00:28:44.220 of water at night, I have to walk through your 00:28:44.220 --> 00:28:46.759 bedroom. Precisely. It was designed for large 00:28:46.759 --> 00:28:50.019 families where that kind of Western middle -class 00:28:50.019 --> 00:28:53.759 privacy wasn't a priority or an option. It forces 00:28:53.759 --> 00:28:56.640 a very specific communal type of living. And 00:28:56.640 --> 00:28:58.640 it's called a railroad apartment because the 00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:01.509 rooms are linked like train cars. Exactly. Then 00:29:01.509 --> 00:29:04.309 you have the basic single room solution. Studio, 00:29:04.609 --> 00:29:07.470 efficiency, bachelor apartment. Are these all 00:29:07.470 --> 00:29:09.509 the same thing? More or less. The terminology 00:29:09.509 --> 00:29:12.529 is regional. Studio or efficiency is common in 00:29:12.529 --> 00:29:16.009 the U .S. Studio flat in the U .K. Bachelor or 00:29:16.009 --> 00:29:18.009 bachelorette is very common in Canada and South 00:29:18.009 --> 00:29:19.789 Africa. And now we have the micro apartment. 00:29:20.130 --> 00:29:22.869 Which is just the modern, sometimes glamorized 00:29:22.869 --> 00:29:25.630 version of the single room dwelling. But even 00:29:25.630 --> 00:29:28.509 smaller, often under 300 square feet. with very 00:29:28.509 --> 00:29:30.809 clever built -in furniture to make it functional. 00:29:31.029 --> 00:29:34.069 And what about lofts? People love a good loft 00:29:34.069 --> 00:29:37.509 conversion. A true loft is a specific thing. 00:29:37.589 --> 00:29:40.170 It's not just any apartment with high ceilings. 00:29:40.650 --> 00:29:43.250 Technically, it means you're utilizing the vertical 00:29:43.250 --> 00:29:46.470 space between the structural floors of a former 00:29:46.470 --> 00:29:49.109 factory or warehouse. So you're living in the 00:29:49.109 --> 00:29:52.220 space where... machines used to be. Right. And 00:29:52.220 --> 00:29:54.640 often you'll see the original cast iron columns 00:29:54.640 --> 00:29:56.839 supporting the structure, not the original load 00:29:56.839 --> 00:29:59.220 -bearing walls. It's a very distinct industrial 00:29:59.220 --> 00:30:01.480 aesthetic. Now let's talk about the bottom of 00:30:01.480 --> 00:30:03.400 the market again. We mentioned the bedsit, but 00:30:03.400 --> 00:30:06.420 in the U .S. we had the SRO, single room occupancy. 00:30:06.640 --> 00:30:09.619 The SRO is the most misunderstood and I think 00:30:09.619 --> 00:30:12.319 tragically lost form of urban housing. These 00:30:12.319 --> 00:30:14.180 were essentially hotels for permanent residents. 00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:16.140 What did you get for your rent? You rented a 00:30:16.140 --> 00:30:19.140 room. You had a bed, a dresser, and maybe a sink 00:30:19.140 --> 00:30:20.819 in the corner. You shared a bathroom and maybe 00:30:20.819 --> 00:30:23.240 a communal kitchen down the hall. This used to 00:30:23.240 --> 00:30:26.220 be how the working poor or elderly people on 00:30:26.220 --> 00:30:28.279 fixed incomes or young men just arriving in the 00:30:28.279 --> 00:30:31.640 city survived. It was the absolute bottom rung 00:30:31.640 --> 00:30:33.759 of the housing ladder. If you had very little 00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:36.299 money, you could still afford an SRO. It kept 00:30:36.299 --> 00:30:38.880 you off the street. It was safe and private, 00:30:38.940 --> 00:30:41.759 if not spacious. So what happened? Why are they 00:30:41.759 --> 00:30:44.160 basically gone? We regulated them out of existence. 00:30:45.180 --> 00:30:47.420 In the mid -20th century, cities started passing 00:30:47.420 --> 00:30:50.819 laws saying every legal housing unit must have 00:30:50.819 --> 00:30:52.960 a private bathroom and a private kitchen. Which 00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:55.400 sounds benevolent. Everyone deserves their own 00:30:55.400 --> 00:30:57.880 kitchen. It sounds great, but it raised the minimum 00:30:57.880 --> 00:31:01.000 cost of housing dramatically. If you force a 00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:03.480 developer to put a kitchen and bath in every 00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:06.980 single unit, the rent doubles or triples. We 00:31:06.980 --> 00:31:09.460 effectively made cheap housing illegal. We sawed 00:31:09.460 --> 00:31:11.779 off the bottom rung of the ladder. We sawed it 00:31:11.779 --> 00:31:14.200 off and now we wonder why homelessness has exploded 00:31:14.200 --> 00:31:16.220 in so many cities. That is a heavy realization. 00:31:16.619 --> 00:31:19.140 By demanding higher standards, we actually hurt 00:31:19.140 --> 00:31:21.319 the people we were trying to protect. It's a 00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:24.099 classic case of unintended consequences in housing 00:31:24.099 --> 00:31:28.079 policy. We replace cheap private rooms with either 00:31:28.079 --> 00:31:30.099 expensive apartments or congregate shelters. 00:31:30.380 --> 00:31:32.039 And then you have the rooming house, which is 00:31:32.039 --> 00:31:34.200 slightly different. Yes. A rooming house is typically 00:31:34.200 --> 00:31:36.680 a larger house where four or more bedrooms are 00:31:36.680 --> 00:31:38.980 rented out individually. The tenancy is short 00:31:38.980 --> 00:31:42.180 term, often week to week. It's a different legal 00:31:42.180 --> 00:31:44.779 classification from an apartment building. And 00:31:44.779 --> 00:31:46.680 in the Indian subcontinent, there's the mess. 00:31:46.900 --> 00:31:50.000 A mess or a boarding house there is interesting. 00:31:50.380 --> 00:31:53.200 You get a single bedroom. Shared facilities, 00:31:53.579 --> 00:31:56.079 but it often includes meals and sometimes even 00:31:56.079 --> 00:31:58.839 a maid service. The very common setup for students 00:31:58.839 --> 00:32:00.799 or young professionals moving to a new city. 00:32:00.900 --> 00:32:03.619 On the complete flip side of the ownership spectrum, 00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:06.559 we have the co -op. I feel like this is a New 00:32:06.559 --> 00:32:09.880 York obsession. The board, the interview. It 00:32:09.880 --> 00:32:12.279 sounds terrifying. The housing cooperative is 00:32:12.279 --> 00:32:15.779 a fascinating legal beast. In a co -op, you do 00:32:15.779 --> 00:32:17.680 not own your apartment. You don't get a deed. 00:32:17.900 --> 00:32:19.900 Wait, I pay a million dollars for a place on 00:32:19.900 --> 00:32:22.819 the Upper West Side and I don't own it. No. The 00:32:22.819 --> 00:32:25.400 building itself is owned by a non -profit corporation. 00:32:26.420 --> 00:32:29.099 When you buy an apartment, you're actually buying 00:32:29.099 --> 00:32:32.039 shares in that corporation. So I'm a shareholder. 00:32:32.259 --> 00:32:34.740 You're a shareholder, and your shares come with 00:32:34.740 --> 00:32:37.400 a proprietary lease, which gives you the right 00:32:37.400 --> 00:32:40.640 to occupy a specific unit. The number of shares 00:32:40.640 --> 00:32:43.680 you own corresponds to the size and desirability 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:46.440 of your apartment. So I'm a business partner 00:32:46.440 --> 00:32:49.339 with my neighbors, and my lease is just a perk 00:32:49.339 --> 00:32:51.799 of being a shareholder. Exactly. And because 00:32:51.799 --> 00:32:54.700 you are buying into a business partnership, the 00:32:54.700 --> 00:32:57.160 current shareholders, the board, get to decide 00:32:57.160 --> 00:32:59.220 if they want you as a partner. That's why they 00:32:59.220 --> 00:33:01.859 can reject you for seemingly no reason. If you 00:33:01.859 --> 00:33:04.539 go bankrupt or stop paying your monthly maintenance 00:33:04.539 --> 00:33:06.880 fees, the neighbors have to cover your share 00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:09.099 to keep the boiler running and pay the building's 00:33:09.099 --> 00:33:11.799 mortgage. So they are financially terrified of 00:33:11.799 --> 00:33:14.119 bad tenants. So the interviews are incredibly 00:33:14.119 --> 00:33:16.819 intrusive. They want to know your financials, 00:33:16.819 --> 00:33:20.000 your social life, your dog's temperament. In 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:22.099 Australia, this model corresponds to something 00:33:22.099 --> 00:33:24.920 called company title, which is much less common 00:33:24.920 --> 00:33:27.180 now. It's a gated community where the gate is 00:33:27.180 --> 00:33:29.640 a board of directors with a calculator. That's 00:33:29.640 --> 00:33:31.660 a perfect way to describe it. And then finally, 00:33:31.759 --> 00:33:34.640 we have co -housing. This is the hippie cousin 00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:36.660 of the co -op. This is where you have a private 00:33:36.660 --> 00:33:39.180 home but share a big kitchen and do laundry together. 00:33:39.690 --> 00:33:42.250 It's an intentional community. The architecture 00:33:42.250 --> 00:33:45.450 is designed to force interaction. The homes are 00:33:45.450 --> 00:33:47.190 usually clustered around a common green space. 00:33:47.509 --> 00:33:49.650 The cars are parked on the periphery, so you 00:33:49.650 --> 00:33:52.029 have to walk through the common courtyard to 00:33:52.029 --> 00:33:53.569 get to your front door. You're forced to see 00:33:53.569 --> 00:33:55.609 your neighbors. Right. And you have a common 00:33:55.609 --> 00:33:58.529 house where residents are expected to help cook 00:33:58.529 --> 00:34:00.470 dinner for the whole community a few nights a 00:34:00.470 --> 00:34:02.650 week. It's social engineering through architecture, 00:34:02.970 --> 00:34:05.849 trying to recreate the village. It works for 00:34:05.849 --> 00:34:08.250 some people. It's a powerful antidote to loneliness. 00:34:08.969 --> 00:34:11.349 For others, it's a nightmare of committees and 00:34:11.349 --> 00:34:13.789 chore wheels. I can just imagine the arguments 00:34:13.789 --> 00:34:16.670 about whose turn it is to clean the common house 00:34:16.670 --> 00:34:19.429 kitchen. It definitely takes a specific personality 00:34:19.429 --> 00:34:22.170 type to thrive in that environment. One last 00:34:22.170 --> 00:34:24.769 category to clarify because the terms get so 00:34:24.769 --> 00:34:28.170 jumbled. Row houses, townhouses, and terraces. 00:34:28.269 --> 00:34:32.550 The great tomato -to -motto of housing. So row 00:34:32.550 --> 00:34:34.769 house in the U .S. is the same as a terraced 00:34:34.769 --> 00:34:37.710 house in the U .K.? Essentially, yes. The concept 00:34:37.710 --> 00:34:40.570 is three or more houses built in a row sharing 00:34:40.570 --> 00:34:42.849 party walls on either side. And then there's 00:34:42.849 --> 00:34:45.590 the back -to -back house. That's a specific and 00:34:45.590 --> 00:34:48.530 now very rare type of terraced house from the 00:34:48.530 --> 00:34:51.380 Industrial Revolution. Not only do they share 00:34:51.380 --> 00:34:54.059 walls on the sides, they also share a wall at 00:34:54.059 --> 00:34:56.500 the rear with another house. So you only have 00:34:56.500 --> 00:34:59.340 windows on one side. Yes. No through breeze, 00:34:59.579 --> 00:35:02.739 very little light. They were notoriously unhealthy 00:35:02.739 --> 00:35:05.519 and were banned for a long time. And the Q -type, 00:35:05.639 --> 00:35:08.480 that sounds modern. Very. It's a late 20th century 00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:11.239 UK townhouse design. They're arranged in blocks 00:35:11.239 --> 00:35:13.880 of four, with each house forming a corner of 00:35:13.880 --> 00:35:15.989 the block. It's a space -efficient way to give 00:35:15.989 --> 00:35:18.690 everyone a corner unit. And finally, semi -detached, 00:35:18.730 --> 00:35:21.010 just to be clear. One building, two separate 00:35:21.010 --> 00:35:23.369 houses side by side, sharing a single central 00:35:23.369 --> 00:35:26.150 wall. A duplex, essentially. We have covered 00:35:26.150 --> 00:35:28.389 a massive amount of ground here. We've gone from 00:35:28.389 --> 00:35:30.789 the mud skyscrapers of Yemen to the fireproof 00:35:30.789 --> 00:35:33.969 concrete of modern America. We've seen how zoning 00:35:33.969 --> 00:35:36.650 can be used as a weapon and how tax codes make 00:35:36.650 --> 00:35:38.710 apartments the financial heroes of the city. 00:35:39.079 --> 00:35:41.340 It really reframes the way you look at a skyline, 00:35:41.380 --> 00:35:43.460 doesn't it? Or even just a simple three -story 00:35:43.460 --> 00:35:45.519 brick building on a side street. It does. So 00:35:45.519 --> 00:35:48.059 if we have to distill this down, if the listener 00:35:48.059 --> 00:35:50.619 takes one thing away from this deep dive, what 00:35:50.619 --> 00:35:54.199 should it be? I think it's this. We need to stop 00:35:54.199 --> 00:35:57.599 viewing multifamily housing as a problem to be 00:35:57.599 --> 00:36:01.079 managed or a threat to our neighborhoods. The 00:36:01.079 --> 00:36:04.380 history shows us that density is a tool. It's 00:36:04.380 --> 00:36:07.000 an adaptation. A human adaptation. Right. It's 00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:08.960 the most efficient and often the most vibrant 00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:12.239 and creative way for humans to inhabit a planet 00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:15.980 with limited space. The resistance to it is often 00:36:15.980 --> 00:36:18.800 based on myths and prejudices that are hundreds 00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:21.579 of years old. And the economic reality that these 00:36:21.579 --> 00:36:24.119 buildings often subsidize the suburbs is something 00:36:24.119 --> 00:36:25.920 that really needs to be part of the conversation 00:36:25.920 --> 00:36:28.559 at every single town council meeting. Absolutely. 00:36:28.639 --> 00:36:31.559 The beneficial fiscal externality. isn't just 00:36:31.559 --> 00:36:34.199 jargon. It's the money that paves your roads 00:36:34.199 --> 00:36:37.300 and funds your library. So here's my final provocative 00:36:37.300 --> 00:36:39.860 thought for you, the listener. The next time 00:36:39.860 --> 00:36:42.320 you're walking your dog or driving to work, look 00:36:42.320 --> 00:36:44.219 at the buildings around you. Don't just see an 00:36:44.219 --> 00:36:46.639 apartment complex and tune it out. Look closer. 00:36:46.780 --> 00:36:50.360 Ask yourself, is that a dingbat? Is that a four 00:36:50.360 --> 00:36:53.300 plus one? Is it a toothpick trying to break through? 00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:55.480 Try to spot the history in the architecture. 00:36:55.880 --> 00:36:58.599 What economic forces, what building codes, what 00:36:58.599 --> 00:37:01.260 cultural values made that building look the way 00:37:01.260 --> 00:37:03.619 it does? And think about the invisible lines, 00:37:03.679 --> 00:37:07.019 the zoning maps that decided why that building 00:37:07.019 --> 00:37:09.539 stops right there and why the block next to it, 00:37:09.639 --> 00:37:12.000 filled with single family homes, looks completely 00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:14.619 different. Think about who was allowed to live 00:37:14.619 --> 00:37:17.320 there and who was excluded. By the very design 00:37:17.320 --> 00:37:19.099 of the neighborhood. Because whether we are in 00:37:19.099 --> 00:37:22.679 a Roman insulae or a shiny new OnePlus 5, we 00:37:22.679 --> 00:37:24.420 are all just trying to figure out how to live 00:37:24.420 --> 00:37:26.380 together in the stack. And hopefully with good 00:37:26.380 --> 00:37:29.519 plumbing, unlike the Romans. Hopefully. Thanks 00:37:29.519 --> 00:37:31.480 for diving deep with us. We'll see you next time.