Author Archives: Niloo Nouri

Wesley Yu had a plan to create multigenerational housing on his residential property in East Palo Alto. But after getting hit with a nearly $55,000 fee from the city, the small-scale project devolved into a legal fight — one that was eventually settled in his favor.

Will the blue state starter home ever return?

Yesterday morning, my dad sent me the above chart from Apollo and said, “frightening, do you have one for Canada?” In 2010, the median age (not mean) of all US homebuyers was 39 years old. Today, it is 59 years old. And it has jumped significantly since the start of the pandemic.

The AI effect in San Francisco is spilling over to the East Bay’s residential real estate scene, with some agents saying they are seeing tech money show up in the form of all-cash offers over the past several weeks.

Canada needs livable apartments to help fix the housing crisis. To do that, it must change the rulebook for both condos and rentals

As they look upon the United States of America in 2025, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson see a country wrought by a half-century of failed governance. They see states and cities theoretically committed to progressive futures instead bogged down in labyrinthine mires of process — a society stuck in low gear. Yet they also see opportunity to turn those failures on their heads, and to build a better society based around more responsive, efficient governance.

Imagine mixed-use was the default zoning designation and you could start whatever business you wanted on the ground floor of your home.

What it shows is a bunch of narrow urban properties ranging, for the most part, from 5 to 7 storeys. Some of them are old buildings, and some are new. Regardless, the point I wanted to make was that this is a scale and rhythm of building that does wonders for cities. They’re dense, they have a compact footprint, and they promote urban vibrancy.