Bobby Fijan

Now **that's** a strange floorplan

1BR/1BA, 475sf, $2720/month, Washington DC

YouTube video by Reasonably Optimistic Cities Are Great! But You Can't Afford It Anymore | Reasonably Optimistic

Here's the full episode

(I really need to learn to look into the camera)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5eY...

I did a podcast with the Washington Post last week:

How cities have become places of demographic churn (young people move in but leave when they have kids) ... and how my company is building housing to fix that.

Fire rating between building

The 3-Story Rowhouse is *THE* American prototype … the perfect starter home

Yes. Good catch We did add that to the real one

The best floorplan comment possible …

I'm willing to engage in back and forth on ideas about how to make cities better, housing for families, parking, mixed-use, regulations, etc here on bluesky

I will pass on political ones with you, other than perhaps in person

And I'd ask that you stop, unless it's about above list

If we ever meet again in person and there's a reasonable amount of time, I'd be fine with that. But this is obviously not the forum or medium for a conversation like that

And you can hang out in the construction trailer. You'll meet lots of people with WILD range of beliefs

And I’m already working with plenty of people, including quite prominent ones, on the other side from me, who are also pragmatic and just want to build good things and make cities better

If thats not your personal position … then okay. Not everyone needs to.

Who people choose to personally support politically is ~irrelevant to me when it comes to building housing for families

I’ll talk to, hire or partner with basically anyone … if we align on the vision for the City of more kids and families

In sports when it’s more individual, the motivations by a good coach are often more tailored

Some people (like me) respond to a good kick in the pants, others need more reassurance

Individual sales folks have different styles too, but at the CORP level its v aggressive

Like Glengarry Glenn Ross

No, it’s just that not all people are cut out for commission based sales

It’s a strange part of the business and you need folks who respond to that kind of motivation for broad sales teams.

And that's what we are doing even in cities & with politicians who do not agree with me politically and yet are ~aware of them

But it frankly doesn't ever come up bc in my professional experience ... people who want to get stuff built view "housing for families" as a non-partisan issue

Leaving my personal religion aside ... I'm happy to work with people who did not vote for this president. In fact many of my investors and several of my employees do not

My focus is on building great product for families in the City so they can have kids and stay.

This is Kendall Square, so it needs to be a 2BR or else a VERY expensive 1BR

I really like this 2BR/1BA floorplan in Kendall Square, Boston

720 square feet ... and deals with a narrow acute corner angle really well

Developers don't really building 2BR/1BAs anymore

The City that I want to see is like this one described in a bible verse:

"Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets (of Jerusalem), each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets."

A City built for families is one when you *could* stay. And even a 24 year who has no interest in marriage or kids can appreciate they don't want to HAVE to move out if they ever did want to make those entirely natural decisions.

And also, a City with kids is just a more beautiful place.

For me, that’s a place where any young person can move to the city start their career and CAN have a first child … and after that, it who knows.

The should ought to be multi-generational. It's better that way. Even for people who never end up having children, whether by choice or circumstances.

It is ironic that many of the people who issue polemics about cities, either got their education or their career starts in a major city.

Either way, I think that it is incumbent on those who love Cities to paint a vision for what they want the city to be.

Recently, much has been made by people, to write off cities. Either just to say that country or suburbs are just "better" or the cities are too far gone.

I reject both of those ideas

Cities are the centers, not just of economic growth in this country, but also of social and cultural influence

Really enjoyed this podcast conversation with Aaron Renn.

Any critiques I have of The City, are only because I want them to be great.

I think in order to be truly great, they have to designed FOR families. So that young people can have kids and stay.

open.spotify.com/episode/7fUP...

I feel the same. Beauty matters … and it’s not unreasonable for somebody to care that the building that goes next to them is pretty or ugly

I think granular/individual school enrollment data would be a cool way to track "Do Studios lead to an increase in kids in immediate neighborhood?"

I have apartment building data (year, floorplans, address, rent) and could overlay that - but thats a lot of work and I have a lot house chores today!

I think 60+ was interesting because it stayed constant (as a %)

I had thought there might be a bunch of wealthier boomers moving in, since I knew a bunch, anecdotally, who did ... but seems it didn't work out that way. Or else it replaced displacement of other older folks

Download U.S. Population Data - SEER Population Data U.S. county-level population data files for all states combined or by state, for 19 age groups or single-year age groups, by race.

But here's the link to the raw data so you can query yourself if you want

seer.cancer.gov/popdata/down...

So I pulled the SEER/NCI population numbers for DC every year back to 1990 (like your chart). I broke them into age cohorts and looked at changes in % over time. These were the ones I found most interesting/relevant:

<5
5-12,
13-17
28-42
60+

love to see those. that'd be great

Key to affordable "family friendly" design is reducing ratio of bathrooms to bedrooms. Therefore, you want a bathroom serve mulitple ppl at same time

For my projects (3-story rowhomes) where 2 bedrooms share a bathroom on a floor ... one kid can use the sink or shower while other uses the toilet