I remember a conversation about 15 years ago with an employee who thought it was unfair that they, as a late 20-something well-paid professional, couldn’t afford to live alone in a condo wherever they pleased.  She was a little surprised when I replied that neither I nor my siblings nor parents and especially not my grandparents would have even considered that a possibility.  People got married, lived with their parents until they got married, or had roommates.  It had always been that way.

Looking back, I am not surprised she had no idea that being a young, single homeowner was a new thing.  Her generation and the ones that followed seem nostalgic for a way of life that never really existed.  They don’t know apartments and houses didn’t always have two bathrooms or fancy appliances or in-unit laundry.  They’ve certainly never lived in a world where almost no one, whether by themselves or with a partner, could have afforded an extra bedroom just for a home office.

I am not saying that expecting those things is bad or wrong.  I am not saying that today’s aspirations for more and better are spoiled or unreasonable.  I am, however, saying that things have changed so much that contrasting housing today with that of 40 or 50 years ago is, to quote myself from last month, like comparing apples and kumquats.  They both may be fruit, but that’s about where the similarities end.

People love to talk about how much cheaper housing used to be, how much easier to find.  Much of that talk is based on unfounded beliefs and assumptions about the past, present and future.  There are tangible, documentable differences between what housing used to be, what it is today and what it is likely to be in the near future.  Units are bigger, more utilities are required, quality is better and more energy efficient.  It’s a bit like comparing a 1975 Ford Pinto that would sometimes blow up when rear ended with a 2025 hybrid Honda Civic.  It can be done but it doesn’t make much sense.

Not only have zoning, building codes, demographics, jobs and the economy changed – we have too.  Housing ecosystems have evolved along with people and the times and are no longer easily explained by outdated rules-of-thumb. Fiscal policy, quantitative easing, inflation, mortgage rates, labor laws, tariffs, immigration policy and birth rates impact housing from the outside in ways too complex and too numerous for simple estimations.

It should not come as a surprise that the singular solutions proposed by advocates have not made the overall situation much better.  Conversely, NIMBY attempts at stopping development have not kept communities from evolving right along with society at large.  People moving into a new housing has no more or less impact on community character than does a community shrinking and getting older when nothing new is built.  New housing doesn’t overrun schools because school age populations are dropping as families have less kids.

Both sides have failed by cherry picking limited “facts” while ignoring root causes. Enabling ADU’s has not made up for decades of lackluster new supply.  Increasing density on built out parcels will not make existing housing stock match our new demographic profile.  Everyone is bandaging uncleaned wounds with old first aid supplies.  It may help in the short run, but it won’t stop the infection from killing you later.

Decades of insufficient new housing, increasing demographic-driven demand, and rising costs are symptoms of an undiagnosed disease.  We seem unwilling to discuss, let alone treat, chronic underlying disorders which get harder to cure the longer we wait.  Housing been in trouble for decades and proposed solutions haven’t worked – just look back at HUD reports from the 1970’s, or 1990’s articles about the lack of new supply.  This is not a new problem.

We continue to mistake tangible assets for housing. Units are the physical manifestation of what people need to live and contribute to their communities and our economy.  What residents need is not static, nor is it particularly predictable.   It evolves as we and the economy and technology change.  Cities and towns that only worry about buildings and setbacks have no hope of keeping up.

We remain committed to fallacies that create convenient but unfounded arguments.   Experience should have shown us by now that regulating the built environment cannot resolve complex social issues like housing, education, displacement and so many others.  Remember urban renewal?

Restricting new buildings to old, familiar types like single family homes will not stop time.  Residents move and age and evolve, changing the character of the communities they live in. Look at Beacon Hill, or Salem or Cambridge or Lexington.  They may look the same, but they’d be unrecognizable to the people who live there in the past.

Maybe the most damaging misconception is that the relationship between population, supply, and demand is causal.  That altering one will predictably lead to changes in others.

It is “common wisdom” that building more housing means leads to either higher populations or lower costs.  But the numbers tell a very different story.  Austin added 267,000 people between 2020 and 2024, yet average rents dropped 17%.  San Francisco rents jumped almost 16% while its population went down by 6%.

Seemingly counterintuitive trends like these will continue.  According to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, the total number of US households will increase by around 860,000 each year between 2025 and 2035.  That is far fewer than added during the Great Recession, and much of that smaller demand will be for people living alone who make up 44% of all new households.  That tendency is consistent across all income brackets but especially for those who earn $75,000 or less.

JGCHS also expects household formation to slow even further between 2035 and 2045 to an increase of just 510,000 households per year.  For context, that is the lowest since before World War II, when the country’s population was half its current size.

I am not saying we shouldn’t build more housing – I’m arguing we need different housing.  Homes that work for who we are now and who we are inevitably becoming.  I’m asking for a meaningful conversation about what to do about the ever-increasing misalignment between household types and an older-than-ever housing stock that was built for a different time and a different population.

Census Bureau data implies that in the next 10 years, the US will have more, new single-person households than the total demand for all new units.  Either communities will shrink in size as people stay in-place, heating and cooling and maintaining more space than they need, or people will be forced to leave their communities to find housing that matches their stage of life.

Alternatively, we could allow new housing types in established communities that enable people to stay in their neighborhoods with family and friends.  We could creatively allow the splitting up of existing, larger homes or building small townhomes on single family lots or small apartment buildings by-right.  Aging in place does not have to mean staying in the same structure; it could just mean the same neighborhood.  Seems to me this would enhance community character, and free up existing family housing for – wait for it – families.

The status quo approaches to fixing housing have not worked for decades.   Using arguments about community character to protect a way of life that never really existed has neither housed people nor protected community character.  Insufficient zoning reform has not increased supply where home values are high, making redevelopment uneconomic.   ADU reform has helped but cannot produce the scale of new units to make up for decades of underbuilding.

We need all of these things and more.  We need to agree on what ails us, give it a diagnosis and stop treating symptoms with outdated procedures and drugs.  That is just bad medicine.

Please send any reactions, comments, or ideas to Scott at [email protected].