Worth noting that this has indeed been done in the U.S., and is probably better evidence for the safety of single stair egress buildings than multi-country comparisons of fire deaths www.pew.org/en/research-...

Pew: Austin added 120,000 homes in a decade—rezoning near jobs, cutting parking rules, and subsidizing affordable homes through bonds and bonuses. Rents fell 4% while US rents rose 10%. The biggest drops hit older, cheaper buildings where lower-income renters live. www.pew.org/en/research-...

"The kinds of multifamily we build most of, where many homes share a common internal corridor, is actually vastly more dangerous than single-stair buildings which are smaller and have fewer residents per corridor or stair." commonwealthbeacon.org/opinion/the-...

Austin built 120,000 homes after the pandemic, increasing its supply by almost a third. Rents dropped 4% from 2021 to 2025 — nearly 20% adjusting for inflation. Sorry to Hell Gate and whoever else is mad at Ezra Klein, but building homes brings down rents: www.pew.org/en/research-...

New Pew article on the Austin building boom, which outpaced both the US & Texas as a whole, leading to rent declines www.pew.org/en/research-...

Hell yeah, Austin! c/o @alexhrwtz.bsky.social www.pew.org/en/research-...

"From 2010 to 2019, rents in Austin increased nearly 93%—more than in any other major American city. From 2015 to 2024, Austin added 120,000 units to its housing stock—an increase of 30%, more than 3x the overall rate of growth in the US (9%)." @pewresearch.org @alexhrwtz.bsky.social

New research from Pew quantifies the extent of the success of YIMBYism in Austin: after a huge run up in prices over the 2010s, the city dramatically liberalized and kicked off a building boom. Now rents are falling. www.pew.org/en/research-...

Looking forward to talking about manufactured housing next week at this Pew webinar including Rachel Siegel and industry folks: www.pew.org/en/about/eve...

oh look at that www.pew.org/en/research-...

Austin has rightfully gotten attention for making it easier to build and seeing rents drop. The extent of their success is remarkable. They added housing at 3x the rate of the U.S. over the past decade. Rents fell from 2021-2025 even as rents rose in Texas and the U.S.

Have questions about this? Come to #CNU34 & ask us! SAFE & AFFORDABLE: LEGALIZING TALLER SINGLE-STAIR APARTMENT BUILDINGS Speakers: @alexhrwtz.bsky.social, co-author of the Pew Charitable Trusts groundbreaking research on the observed safety of modern single-stair buildings in the US, & yours truly

A reminder that one year in, congestion pricing has clearly been a successful policy: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

"During the 15 years I was a renter, I never found a single accessible apartment in a building with fewer than six stories. This isn’t a coincidence; it’s a design failure dictated by Washington state’s outdated codes." www.seattletimes.com/opinion/miss...

new from me: a story about VACANCY CHAINS, the idea that underlies the argument that more housing is good even if you can't afford it www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The bill cuts the stretcher requirement in small bldgs at risk of having no elevator at all (up to 6 stories, 24 units), as well as ordering the building code council to reconsider the issues of elevator hoistway opening protection and two-way visual comms. Tens of thousands in savings per building.

"But in the US, a morass of construction codes, fire safety requirements, utility rules, and even tax policies, treat even small multifamily buildings fundamentally differently from the way they treat single-family homes." Nice to see the great work of @alexhrwtz.bsky.social and Pew in @vox.com.

Apartments are banned on 95% of residential land in Virginia, and they’re banned on large swaths of commercial land too.

Today on UCLA Housing Voice, I talk with @kevinerdmann.bsky.social about about the mid-2000s housing market pre-crash, resulting changes in federal mortgage lending standards, and their catastrophic effects on homeownership, rental affordability, and production. www.lewis.ucla.edu/2026/01/21/1...

My takeaway here is that new housing is just way safer than older housing for so many reasons. If your number one concern in housing policy is fire safety, you should be way more concerned about getting people out of old housing than about making marginal fire safety improvements to future housing.

gr8 research by @pewtrusts.org (@alexhrwtz.bsky.social + Seva Rodnyansky), Bethel Cole-Smith + Daniel Muhammad, @evan-mast.bsky.social, Limin Fang + Emi Kim + @justintyndall.bsky.social Building housing ⬇️housing costs 4 people across the income spectrum (ty @tinysnekcomics.bsky.social 4 the comic)

Update: This bill directing HUD to develop a model single-stair code was amended in House Financial Services committee yesterday to allow six stories instead of five, and it passed committee as part of the Housing for the 21st Century Act!

Condos are an affordable homeownership option, but they're rarely built in CA. A major reason is the construction defect liability, which creates excessive legal threats disincentivizing construction. @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social from @cayimby.bsky.social explains www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/12/17/1...

Consultants contracted by Minnesota found that an eight-story single-stair building with 6,000 sq. ft. per floor (building 4) has dramatically lower fire risk than a same-height code-compliant two-stair building with a larger floor plate (building 1) www.dli.mn.gov/sites/defaul...

good listen w/ @alexhrwtz.bsky.social also - need to revisit the data with the thousands of single stair buildings @stephenjacobsmith.com and i learned about in brooklyn a few weeks ago

Today I spoke at VOICE’s Homes for All Assembly about the urgency of our housing shortage. We must build homes for all incomes, ensure every level of government plays its part, and use our power to unlock housing and protect stability for everyone in Alexandria.

I can't stop thinking about this. We're pursuing zero fire risk in multifam, while tolerating much more in single-fam. People respond by building and living in single-fam, where they're exposed to not only one of the highest fire death risks in the developed world, but also TONS more car crash risk

Love this new report on buildings' relative fire safety from @alexhrwtz.bsky.social and Pew colleagues. www.pew.org/en/research-...

Pew finds something that everybody in codes and standards knows but few will say out loud: we apply far stricter fire safety standards to apartments than to houses. www.pew.org/en/research-...

In part 2 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy, the UCLA Housing Voice Podcast speaks with @stephenjacobsmith.com about the high cost of elevators in North America, and the negative consequences for affordability and accessibility. www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/09/24/9...

Well said. And this research shows why reforms like Colorado's are crucial. Regional housing supply drives local rents 4x more than supply within a municipality, so statewide reforms are necessary--there's just no way to get to widespread affordability solely through local action.

Turns out there's no tradeoff between housing abundance and affordability for low-income renters- the opposite in fact. Rents have risen 10 pts more during the shortage in low-income neighborhoods than high-incomes ones. www.pew.org/en/research-...

Texas has raised the bar, putting up probably the single most impactful legislative session for housing this year with 7 bipartisan bills. Pew's statement outlining them here: www.pew.org/en/about/new...

THREAD: A Win for Housing in Texas! SB 2835 — Single-Stairway Bill — is headed to the governor’s desk! Working with Rep. @jamestalarico.bsky.social, we passed SB 2835 to clear out outdated codes and unlock more housing opportunities for small-scale, multi-family developments across Texas. (1/5)

Big win for Texans looking for housing. Single-stair reform #SB2835 is a major step forward for legalizing modern apartments that can fit on small lots and above stores.

Policy changes often take years to show results. And then there is congestion pricing in New York. Here are all of the ways we could find it having an immediate effect: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

It's easy to lose sight of the big picture, but Rachel provides thorough context on the 2-stair mandate: "Since fires are more common in single-family homes than in new apartments, they say current rules may actually steer people toward less safe housing."

Good one. So many single-stair bills moving in state legislatures right now.

New Pew brief: Pennsylvania's housing shortage has pushed up costs. Highlights: 1) 60% drop in inventory helped push up prices 55% 2) PA ranks 44th of 50 states in housing permits granted 3) Counties that have issued few permits have seen rents soar www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-...

More single-stair momentum…

This is one of the most-discussed housing reforms in state legislatures right now, and here is empirical proof that it’s safe, definitively refuting the only argument being made against single-stair building code reform.

A profile of my organization in Slate, by @henrygrabar.bsky.social: slate.com/business/202...

Great illustration of how the debate over whether to allow enough homes for everyone is moving from the local level to the state level. And when it does, even traditionally exclusive towns like Lexington, MA sometimes re-think things and welcome new neighbors.

New solar plants expected to support most U.S. electric generation growth www.eia.gov/todayinenerg...

Great morning at #MayorsDC25. Lots of pro-housing mayors there who have led the way: Single-stair in Knoxville, easing apartment construction near commerce in Columbus & Cincinnati, adaptive reuse in Denver, shrinking lot size in Austin, bonus ADUs and TOD in San Diego.

Love this new video on how the housing shortage drives up costs & homelessness from @justineunderhill.bsky.social. Video's a great format for explaining housing generally, but this one is a dazzler: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQW4...

A new YIMBY Action report finds that of 232 state legislators who sponsored pro-housing bill and then ran for reelection, 95% of them won: yimbyaction.org/blog/pro-hou...

Yes indeed! And homelessness fell relative to the rest of the state and displacement fell relative to other cities: www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-...

New Q&A with former mayor of New Rochelle, NY on zoning reforms that added thousands of apartments: www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-...

Small-scale progress (in a literal and figurative sense) coming thanks to St. Paul's zoning reforms: 3 vacant lots are about to turn into 5 homes. Thanks to new zoning laws, old lots are allowed to be cut into smaller pieces. That's exactly what will happen here!