Bobby Fijan

We don't built apartments for families.

Look at the distribution of units built in Bellevue, Washington. In buildings since 2010 with more than 20 units ... over 70% of new units are Studio or 1BRs, and less than 2% have 3+ bedrooms

Same for energy costs

Rachel has been a reliably good and persistent writer on the topic of babies and housing for a long time now.

Cities made a bet on millennials — but forgot one key thing Can cities learn to love kids again?

Cities will always be a magnet for the ambitious & adventurous. A great places to be young - if you don’t have kids

Thats the heart of a Vox piece (I was quoted in) which explains how cities grew by attracting millennials but lost sight of the next step in people’s lives
www.vox.com/policy/46981...

Cities made a bet on millennials — but forgot one key thing Can cities learn to love kids again?

Building family friendly housing is good people … and good for cities

www.vox.com/policy/46981...

Sure. DM me

The 16-18' wide rowhouse is the perfect "starter home”

My company is building this 3-story rowhouse typology is bc it’s beautiful and functional as both detached AND attached … so it works in both urban & suburban neighrbhoods

1200-1600sf, 3-4BR units

(and dogs IN strollers don't count, obviously)

What does it look like for a City to be family friendly?

“In the City, I want there to be so many babies, so many strollers … that it is as common for you to see a stroller as it is for you to see someone walking a dog.”

Most of the interviews I've done before have been technical or professional ... so it was nice to talk about WHY cities are good, and WHY we should care about making them good for families

A Floor Plan for Making Babies (ft. Bobby Fijan)

"If you want to stay in the city and raise your family there, you should be able to do that”

“I think if a lot of these row houses here on Capitol Hill were $300,000 and you could just like buy one if you had a normal job, 80-90% of people would just do that”

open.spotify.com/episode/3bpq...

But at a large firm, even the SVP does not have the authority to say yes or no to a change at the meeting. So they can merely sit there in the meeting and get feedback

It’s like how a customer service agent at an airline only makes people more upset through their lack of ability to fix things

When I show up at a small neighborhood meeting and someone says they don’t like something, I can say “what is it you don’t like?” or “what do you want to change” and then I can give them an answer or propose changes immediately. Because it’s my money

It’s why I think local developers have an advantage. They can counter with another specific vision

And also, paradoxically, smaller developers have more agency to make decisions on the spot

And also … everyone intuitively knows that Toll Brothers does not care about a town for 1 min after they sell their last house

It’s about care or love of place

By far the most influential advocates for/against a project begin “My name is xxxx yyyy and I’ve lived at 100 Maple for 40 years”

It proves you fundamentally care. Long term about a place.

Architect is Jeanne Gang

And some of the floorplans are quite interesting at well

630sf 1BR/1BA

Fascinating layout

Wow St. Louis! I was not familiar with your game

Might be the most striking apartment building I've seen. And it's 5 years old.

This apartment building in Sacramento has the *perfect* lifestyle photo as their hero/header image

New buildings never include any photos of any children.

What market was this building in?

I haven’t seen that yet at an apartment building. Just those large outdoor bars

Oversized chess sets are the funniest apartment amenity … that no one ever uses.

I'm sure they'll give you a visa gift card instead

The point is that they want your monthly "payments" to be high

Oh we left those long behind

These are just straight price wars

“Lease now, cruise later” is a hilariously good line

It’s a great time to be looking for an apartment in Nashville. Lease specials:

3 months free rent!
A free cruise!

Heroes

Next Wednesday, November 19, I am participating in a panel discussion at AIA Brooklyn with @holz-bau.bsky.social and SO-IL's Jonathan Molloy about building code reform. It will be in-person in Downtown Brooklyn from 6 to 8:30 p.m., register free to attend here: www.eventbrite.com/e/rethinking...

Stratos