Welcome to the debate. Today, we are looking
at the mathematics of survival and I guess the
geometry of community. We are dissecting the
architecture of density, multifamily residential.
In the industry, we often just call it the MDU,
the multi -dwelling unit. MDU, I mean, it sounds
a little like a prison designation, doesn't it?
And frankly, for a lot of history, that comparison,
it wasn't too far off. We aren't just talking
about buildings today. We are talking about what
is arguably the single most volatile flashpoint
in urban politics. This is where zoning wars
are fought. It's where neighborhoods are either
made or segregated. It is controversial, yes.
But let's ground this in a quick definition.
When we say multifamily residential, we're classifying
any housing where separate residential units
are contained within one building or one complex.
And the spectrum is just massive. It runs from,
say, the humble duplex next door. all the way
to the soaring apartment tower downtown. And
the core question we really need to answer is,
does this form represent the pinnacle of fiscal
and communal efficiency, a necessary evolution,
or is it, as you usually insist, a tool for exclusion?
I'm insisting it's a compromise, and often a
pretty dangerous one. My argument is that you
simply cannot separate the building from its
baggage. The history of the MTU, from the Industrial
Revolution slums to the exclusionary zoning maps
of today, It's a history of class conflict. And
I'm here to argue that the data overrides that
history. Multifamily housing is the superior
model for fiscal stability and, yes, for physical
safety. It offers higher per capita value and
beneficial externalities that we ignore at our
own financial peril. I'm speaking for the form
itself, really, and its potential to save our
cities. The potential is one thing. The reality,
that's another. So let's hear your case. My stance
is the case for fiscal and physical superiority.
We need to stop looking at apartments as just
choices and start looking at them as economic
engines. When you analyze the tax revenue per
acre, multifamily settings consistently, and
I mean consistently, outperform single -family
homes. This isn't just about developer profit.
This is about municipal solvency. Solvency for
the city, perhaps, but usually that comes at
the cost of the living standards of the people
inside. And that? That right there is the myth
I want to shatter. Look at the Gallagher study
from 2016. It's a pivotal piece of research.
Gallagher analyzed the fiscal impact of different
housing types and found that multifamily housing
generates, quote, beneficial fiscal externalities.
In plain English, these buildings generate more
tax revenue for the infrastructure they consume
than low density sprawl does. They effectively
subsidize the single family homeowners who complain
about them. Right. You're making the tax argument.
It's the favorite weapon of the modern urbanist.
Because it's irrefutable math. And while we're
on the subject of myths, let's talk about safety.
At every zoning hearing, you hear the same fear.
Density is dangerous. What about fires? The 2025
Pew data completely inverts this. Modern multifamily
buildings provide the highest level of fire protection.
Thanks to strict code requirements, sprinkler
systems, fire -rated separations, they are a
lower fire hazard than your average detached
home. This is the evolution of community, you
know, from the Roman insulae to today. It's just
humans living closer for mutual benefit. You
mentioned the Roman insulae. It's worth remembering
that those were notorious death traps, prone
to collapse and fire, built by slumlords to warehouse
the plebs. And that brings me right to my stance,
the case for historical friction and exclusion.
You see an efficiency chart. I see a history
of unwanted housing. Unwanted by the market or
unwanted by the neighbors? Unwanted by the political
structure. In the United States specifically,
zoning laws are weaponized. Huge swaths of land
are zoned strictly for single -family homes,
not to preserve character, but to actively prohibit
the MDU. It is a deliberate barrier. And historically,
these bans weren't subtle at all. They were explicit
efforts to keep racial minorities and the working
poor out of specific school districts, out of
specific neighborhoods. But that's a critique
of the regulation, not the architecture itself.
You can't blame the brick for the law. The brick
is the law in physical form. When you look at
the research, affluent homeowners are the most
likely people to oppose these developments. And
why? Because they don't see fiscal externalities.
They see tenements. They see rooming houses.
They see a threat to their property values and
their social standing. You cannot discuss the
MDU without discussing the class warfare that
prevents it from being built. Perception is a
powerful drug. I'll grant you that. But innovation
is the antidote. And this brings us to the design
itself. You claim these buildings are compromises.
I see them as brilliant adaptations to constraints.
adaptations, or just boxes stacked to maximize
yield? Well, let's look at the most ubiquitous
example in North America right now, the 1 plus
5. You've seen them everywhere. Five stories
of wood -framed residential sitting on top of
a concrete podium, which is usually retail or
parking. Oh, I've seen them. It's impossible
to miss them. They all look exactly the same.
They look similar because they solve the specific
code equation. It's a structural innovation that
allows for rapid, safe densification using cheaper
materials, wood, while maintaining fire safety
through that concrete podium separation. It helps
solve the housing supply crisis. Is it a little
repetitive? Maybe. But it is democratizing access
to the city. It's aesthetic distinctiveness zero.
But I'll give you a global counterpoint. You
want to talk about adaptation? Look at the toothpick
apartments in Hong Kong. We are talking about
buildings, maybe 20 stories high, built on these
tiny lots, sometimes with only one apartment
per floor. That is extreme density. Yes, I'll
grant you that. It's precarious. It is the architectural
manifestation of desperation. These pencil towers,
they're surrounded by shorter buildings, blocking
light and air. It feels temporary, you know,
even if it's made of concrete. You pick the extreme.
But then you ignore the shophouse or the Tong
Lao in Southeast Asia. I mean, that is the same
concept, density on a small lot, but perfected.
You have the family business on the ground floor,
open to the street, and then the residential
quarters above. It creates a mixed -use environment
just organically. It's vibrant. A subdivision
of detached homes is a graveyard compared to
a street of Tong Lao. The Tong Lao has charm,
I admit. But for every charming shophouse, there
is a dingbat. The dingbat? Oh, come on. That's
strictly a Los Angeles phenomenon. But it represents
a specific mindset. The dingbat style is a boxy
two -story apartment building on stilts hovering
over a carport. It is the ultimate expression
of prioritizing the car over the human. Or take
the 4 plus 1 that took over Chicago in the 60s
and 70s. Masonry and wood, four stories over
a parking lot. These designs weren't about community
evolution. They were about squeezing the maximum
number of renters onto a lot while meeting minimum
parking requirements. It's just cynical architecture.
I would frame it as providing essential housing
stock. And you're ignoring the beautiful iterations.
Look at the garden apartment. Low -rise, semi
-detached, surrounded by green space. Or the
brownstone in New York. Technically, a brownstone
is just a row house, a multifamily density form,
and yet it is highly coveted. It proves that
density can be desirable. A brownstone is desirable
now because it has been gentrified. But let's
talk about the interior experience of those older
forms. Had you ever actually lived in a railroad
apartment? I know the layout. It's linear, front
to back. It's a privacy nightmare. The rooms
are linked directly with no hallway to save space.
So to get from the living room to the kitchen,
you might have to walk through someone's bedroom.
That is the architecture of density forcing a
loss of dignity. It prioritized the efficiency
of the floor plan over the privacy of the human
being. It was a layout born of necessity and
lot shape, but people adapted. And that adaptation
leads to ownership, which is where the real debate
lies. We often assume MDU means renting and single
family means owning. But the legal structures
of the MDU are where true community innovation
really happens. I'm skeptical that a legal contract
really changes the physical reality of sharing
a wall. Oh, it changes everything. Look at the
intentional community, specifically the housing
cooperative. or co -op. In a co -op, you don't
own your unit. A non -profit corporation owns
the building, and you own shares in that corporation.
It is a deeply democratic, almost socialist way
of living that functions within a capitalist
market. Or the condominium. I mean, you aren't
just buying a box of air. You are buying into
co -ownership of the common areas, the roof,
the boiler. It forces collective responsibility.
In theory, yes. But the vocabulary, it reveals
the class divide again. You say co -op and condo,
and we picture respectable middle -class stability.
But let's look at the other side of that coin,
the British bedsit or the Indian mess. Which
are vital entry points to the urban economy.
A mess or a bedsit offers a single room with
shared facilities. It allows students, bachelors,
and low -wage earners to actually live in the
city where they work. Without them, the city
just becomes a fortress for the rich. Or they
become high -density slums. That is how they
were historically viewed and often how they functioned.
In Glasgow, between 1800 and 1870, they built
high -density housing called the Close. In Liverpool
and Leeds, it was the Court. Terraced, back -to
-back housing clustered around these dead -end
alleys. You're going back to the Victorian era
again. Because the stigma persists. These courts
had no ventilation, no sunlight, and shared open
sewers. The terms became synonymous with squalor,
and that linguistic baggage traveled. Take the
word tenement. Technically, it just means a large
apartment building. But in the United States,
you cannot say tenement without implying a rundown,
dangerous building. Words matter. When you propose
a multifamily unit in a wealthy suburb, they
don't hear condominium. They hear tenement. They
hear SRO, single room occupancy. I'm not convinced
by that line of reasoning because it assumes
we must be held hostage by Victorian sanitation
failures. The SRO, frankly, is a tragedy that
we lost. We zoned them out of existence in the
name of urban renewal and homelessness spiked
almost immediately. The mess, the boarding house.
These were flexible housing options. By stigmatizing
them, we destroyed the bottom rung of the housing
ladder. We didn't just stigmatize them. We associated
them with a specific, quote, lesser form of citizen.
Affluent homeowners oppose multifamily housing,
and this is citing Manville and Monkonen's research,
because they associate it with transient populations.
The rooming house, where leases run week to week.
That creates a very different social fabric than
the 30 -year mortgage. You call it flexibility.
The neighbors call it instability. Which leads
us directly into the political resistance, the
NIMBY factor, not in my backyard. And I want
to return to the data here. The resistance to
these buildings is often framed as protecting
neighborhood character, but it is just irrational
when you look at how people actually try to live.
Is it irrational or is it calculated economic
protectionism? It's irrational because even in
strict single -family zones, people are desperately
hacking the code to create multifamily efficiency.
Look at the mother -in -law apartment or the
granny flat. These are secondary suites tucked
into basements. Or the garage apartment and the
garlo. A garlo? It's a portmanteau of garage
and bungalow. A garage and an apartment at the
same level. The point is, people are breaking
the single -family model because they need density.
The two -flat or three -flat so common in Chicago
or New England's triple -deckers creates a perfect
middle ground. These are stackable units that
fit on a standard lot. The market is screaming
for this. The NIMBY resistance is fighting against
organic demand. But the NIMBY resistance is powerful
because it is rooted in something much deeper
than just architecture. I want to reference the
work of Luis Flores from 2024. He argues that
zoning is a labor market regulation. That's a
bold claim. How does a building code regulate
labor? By banning multifamily housing, you are
effectively regulating who can live and therefore
who can work in a specific area. It excludes
the service class. The resistance is deeply rooted
in preserving a specific exclusionary social
order. It's not just that they don't like the
look of a deck access block. Right. Deck access
does have a bad reputation, largely due to the
brutalist era. Long external walkways, cold concrete.
It's not just the deck access. It's the Plattenbau
of East Germany or the Ponelec in the Czech Republic.
These massive concrete slab towers became symbols
of state control and uniformity. When a community
activist stands up and says, we don't want high
-rises here, they are channeling the ghost of
the platenbau. They are fighting against the
visual language of warehousing people. They see
a loss of individuality. But that's a caricature.
We aren't building Soviet -era concrete slabs
anymore. We are building luxury apartments with
gyms and pools. We're building mixed -use developments
that reduce car dependency. To cling to the fear
of the Plattenbau in 2026 is to deny the reality
of the modern penthouse or the loft conversion.
The loft conversion is an interesting pivot,
though, taking a warehouse, a place of labor,
and turning it into housing for the wealthy.
But that is gentrification, which brings its
own political battles. The point I'm making is
that the MDU is never just a building. It is
a signal. And for many, it signals a loss of
control over their environment. And for many
others, it signals opportunity. It signals a
place to live that is affordable, safe, and connected.
I think we've reached the crux of the disagreement.
We're looking at the same structures but seeing
two completely different histories. Indeed. So,
let's summarize the case for density. Multifamily
residential, whether it's the high -rise penthouse,
the humble duplex, or the efficient 1 plus 5,
is the fiscal savior of the modern community.
The data is clear. These structures lower tax
burdens, maximize value per capita, and provide
superior fire safety compared to the sprawl of
single -family homes. It is an evolving, necessary
solution. We should be encouraging the two -flat,
the garden apartment, and yes, even the micro
-apartment, not banning them out of irrational
fear. And I will conclude by saying that while
the efficiency is undeniable, the MDU carries
the heavy weight of historical class warfare.
From the back -to -back terraces of the Industrial
Revolution to the tenements of New York, this
housing form has been the stage for our society's
struggle with inequality. The zoning battles
we see today are not new. They are echoes of
the attempts to segregate the close and the court
from the respectable street. It is a necessary
form, I agree, but it is one defined by a perpetual
struggle for acceptance and for dignity. It's
remarkable how a simple building classification,
MDU, can reveal such deep societal fissures regarding
race, class, and how we choose to live together.
Absolutely. It forces us to ask who our neighbors
are, and maybe more importantly, who we allow
them to be. A question worth pondering. Join
us next time on The Debate.