Posts Tagged ‘housing’
“And miles to go before I sleep”*…
Anna and Kelly Pendergrast on the mechanics of a disorienting life event (that has spawned a mammoth industry)…
In 2022, about 12.6% of the US population (aged 1 year or over) lived in a different house or apartment than they did a year prior. The migration rate within the United States has been steadily declining over recent decades after sitting around 20% from the end of World War II to the 1980s. While people moving within the same county consistently make up the largest share of movers, the percentage of people moving between states has been rising, increasing from 18.8% [that the portion of the opularion that moved] in 2021 to 19.9% in 2022.
Moving house is profoundly disorienting, throwing into disarray the entirety of your material existence, your daily routines, and your relationship to the land and built environment. It’s also one of the most significant organizational challenges people willingly undertake — a moment of intersection with the global logistics infrastructures that move things from one place to another.
Moving house is a very specific, personal pain, but as with all stressful life events (marriage, divorce, death) there’s an entire industry around it. Professional moving companies — previously represented by the American Moving & Storage Association, now a part of the broader American Trucking Association — are dedicated to streamlining all aspects of moving house and extracting money from the weary and frazzled. Moving is a big industry: There were 17,936 companies in the moving services industry in 2024, with over 109,062 employees.
If you’re accustomed to scrappy DIY moves, watching a moving company at work is like glimpsing a more logistically sophisticated world. If the DIY mover is a stevedore, loading lamps and houseplants one by one into a truck or station wagon, professional movers are workers at the containerized port, a model of efficiency as they stack standardized boxes into a standardized truck. The professional move is faster and more streamlined than doing it yourself, but it requires more materials, more coordination, and more infrastructure.
Part of the mover’s arsenal is the specialized box and other assorted paper products. For instance, the Dish Barrel is a double-walled cardboard container designed specifically to move dishware, enabling multiple layers of delicate kitchen items to be stacked while minimizing the risk of crushing. There are different methods for packing a Dish Barrel, both with and without cardboard dividers (which U-Haul calls cell kits). But in all cases the best practice for the Dish Barrel is to use copious sheets of newsprint before packing into a box.
A review of moving YouTube videos like those linked above reveal a curious gender binary: While organizing YouTubers (who teach viewers how to sort, label, and display items in a house) tend to be women, moving YouTubers (who teach viewers how to wrap, pack, and box items to leave a house) are more likely to be men. While the tasks are very similar, the connotations of the work — homemaking and aesthetics on the one hand, lifting and logistics on the other — keep them squarely in gendered categories…
More redolent reportage on relocation: “Moving House,” from @annapendergrast.bsky.social and @kellypendergrast.bsky.social in Scope of Work.
(Image above: source)
* Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening“
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As we decamp, we might recall that it was in this date in 1962 that the Seattle World’s Fair (more officially known as “the Century 21 Exposition”) opened. Nearly 10 million people attended the fair during its six-month run; and as planned, the exposition left behind a fairground and numerous public buildings and public works (including the iconic Space Needle and the monorail). Unlike many Fairs of its era, Century 21 made a profit– and, relevantly to the topic above– is credited with revitalizing Seattle’s economic and cultural life and attracting an increased flow of movers to the area.
“Though these developments were sometimes linked to the word progress, the usage was ironic: ‘progress’ unguided by humanism is not progress”*…
Further, in a fashion, to yesterday’s post: from Stewart Hicks, a story of unintended consequences…
How did a humble piece of metal quietly reshape the American suburbs—and with them, our expectations for modern homes? This video explores the history and impact of the gang-nail plate, a simple yet revolutionary invention that transformed residential construction and accelerated suburban growth.
Originally devised to combat hurricane damage in places like mid-century Miami, the gang-nail plate allowed builders to quickly and securely connect multiple pieces of lumber at virtually any angle. By enabling the mass production of roof trusses in off-site factories, it led to stronger, cheaper, and more efficient construction. This efficiency opened the door to spacious open floor plans, complex rooflines, cathedral ceilings, and the sprawling McMansion aesthetic, all of which have come to define much of American suburban architecture.
Yet, the influence of this unassuming invention isn’t entirely positive. While it helped streamline building processes and cut costs, it also encouraged rapid housing expansion and larger, more resource-intensive homes. The result was an architectural shift that contributed to suburban sprawl, increased energy demands, and homes increasingly treated as commodities rather than unique, handcrafted spaces. These changes reverberated through building codes, real estate markets, and even family life, influencing how we interact with our homes and one another…
Via Jason Kottke, who observes…
The story of gang-nail plate illustrates an inescapable reality of capitalist economics: companies tend not to pass cost savings from efficiency gains onto consumers…they just sell people more of it. And people mostly go along with it because who doesn’t want a bigger house for the same price as a smaller one 10 years ago or a 75” TV for far less than a 36” TV would have cost 8 years ago or a 1/4-lb burger for the same price as a regular burger a decade ago?…
“The Invention That Accidentally Made McMansions”
* Steven Pinker
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As we practice restraint, we might spare a thought for Canvass White; he died on this date in 1834. An engineer and inventor, he worked as head assistant to chief engineer Benjamin Wright in the construction of the Erie Canal. Needy of a hydraulic cement to serve as mortar between the stones used to create the Canal’s locks, and unable to afford to import it from England, White developed and patented a locally-sourced waterproof cement– Rosendale cement— which was used to build the Erie Canal then host of major works in the US including the Delaware and Hudson Canal and Brooklyn Bridge. As Bill Bryson wrote (in At Home) “the great unsung Canvass White didn’t just make New York rich; more profoundly, he helped make America.”
“Location, location, location”*…
Adam Tooze on the biggest vulnerability in the global economy…
In this precarious moment – in the fourth quarter of 2022, two years into the recovery from COVID – of all the forces driving towards an abrupt and disruptive global slowdown, by far the largest is the threat of a global housing shock…
In the global economy there are three really large asset classes: the equities issued by corporations ($109 trillion); the debt securities issued by corporations and governments ($123 trillion); and real estate, which is dominated by residential real estate, valued worldwide at $258 trillion. Commercial real estate ($32.6 trillion) and agricultural land add another $68 trillion. If economic news were reported more sensibly, indices of global real estate would figure every day alongside the S&P500 and the Nasdaq. The surge in global house prices in 2019-2021 added tens of trillions to measured global wealth. If that unwinds it will deliver a huge recessionary shock.
In regional terms, as a first approximation, think of global real estate assets as split four ways, with the US, China and the EU each accounting for c. 20-22 percent and 35 percent or so belonging to the rest of the world.
The housing complex is at the heart of the capitalist economy. Construction is a major industry worldwide. It is one of the classic drivers of the business-cycle. But beyond the constructive industry itself, the influence of housing as an asset class is pervasive. Compared to equities or debt securities, residential real estate is owned in a relatively decentralized way. Homeownership defines the middle class. And for the majority of households in that class, those with any measurable net worth, the home is the main marketable asset.
Middle-class households are for the most part undiversified and unhedged speculators in one asset, their home. Furthermore, since homes are the only asset that most households can use as collateral, they pile on leverage. For households, as for firms, leverage promises outsized gains, but also brings with it serious risks in the event of a downturn. Mortgage and rental payments are generally the largest single item in household budgets. And household spending, which accounts for 60 percent of GDP in a typical OECD member, is also responsive to perceived household wealth and thus to home equity – the balance between home prices and the mortgages secured on it. For all of these reasons, a surge in mortgage rates and/or a slump in house prices is a very big deal for the world economy and for society more generally…
More background and an assessment of the outlook: “The global housing downturn,” from @adam_tooze.
For Tooze’s follow-up piece on the risk inherent in the $23 trillion US Treasury market, see here.
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As we mortgage our futures, we might recall that it was on this date in 1914 that the Federal Reserve Bank of the U.S. was opened. In actuality a network of 12 regional banks, joined in the Federal Reserve System, they oversee federally-chartered banks in their regions and are jointly responsible for implementing the monetary policy set forth by the Federal Open Market Committee.
In that latter role, they are central to the housing market in that they set interest rates and purchase mortgage securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Government-Sponsored Enterprises in the mortgage market). At this point the Fed owns about a quarter of the mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Federal Reserve Banks in 1936 (source)
“I installed a skylight in my apartment… the people who live above me are furious”*…
It’s easy to see how the Monster Building got its nickname. Located where King’s Road curves around the base of Mount Parker [in Hong Kong], this 19-storey goliath dominates an entire city block. Its façade is pockmarked by air conditioners, drying laundry and corrugated metal awnings, but when the evening sun hits it from the west, casting it in a soft umber glow, it looks beautiful in its own monstrous way.
There’s nothing official about the moniker, although it is common enough that when local coffee chain % Arabica opened a new shop in one of the building’s two courtyards, it referred to it as its “Monster Mansion location.” The name seems to have emerged after the building was featured in two Hollywood blockbusters, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Ghost in the Shell, which turned it into a social media destination…
Together, the five blocks that make up the building contain 2,443 flats, and illegal huts soon filled up the rooftop space. [Lee Ho-yin, head of the University of Hong Kong’s architectural conservation program] estimates the building is home to roughly 6,840 people – a conservative estimate based on Hong Kong’s average household size of 2.8 people. Considering it occupies just 11,000 square metres of space, he says, “the Monster Building is surely the densest spot on earth.”…
So what is it like to live inside a monster? Eva Ho, who works as an administrator at an educational centre, has spent her entire life in the building. “It’s just a normal living place for me,” she says. At its best, the building offers unparalleled convenience, with grocery stores and a wet market on the ground floor, and two courtyards ringed by restaurants. At its worst, Ho says the building can feel “moody,” with a half-century’s worth of grime, poor ventilation and no views to speak of. “What I can see from the windows are the other buildings,” she says…
The remarkable tale in toto at “Hong Kong’s Modern Heritage, Part VII: The Monster Building.”
* Steven Wright
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As we love our neighbors, we might recall that it was on this date in 1903 that Cuba granted the United States a perpetual lease on Guantánamo Bay. The U.S. had established a presence there during the Spanish-American War; when that conflict ended with the Treaty of Paris of 1898 and Spain ceded Cuba its freedom, the U.S. stayed– first informally, then with the backing of Congress…
In 1901 the United States government passed the Platt Amendment as part of an Army Appropriations Bill. Section VII of this amendment read:
That to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points to be agreed upon with the President of the United States..
After initial resistance by the Cuban Constitutional Convention, the Platt Amendment was incorporated into the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba in 1901. The Constitution took effect in 1902, and land for a naval base at Guantánamo Bay was granted to the United States the following year. [source]
“Home’s where you go when you run out of homes”*…
When we imagine the homes of the future, we can’t just think about the technologies that could alter our domestic lives. We also need to think about the changing ways that people relate to their habitats.
For the past five years, Ikea has been on a mission to better understand people’s relationships with their homes by doing in-depth sociological studies of its consumers. The company publishes its finding in its annual Life at Home report, which began in 2014. Last year’s report involved visiting the houses and apartments of 22,000 people across 22 countries to better understand what everyday living looks like in today’s world.
What Ikea found was that our fundamental notions of home and family are experiencing a transformation. Plenty of demographic research suggests that major changes in where and how we live could be afoot: For instance, people who marry later may spend more years living with roommates. If couples delay having children—or choose to remain child-free—they may choose to live longer in smaller apartments. As people live longer, we might find more multigenerational homes, as parents, children, and grandchildren all cohabit under one roof.In addition to those demographic shifts, Ikea’s research uncovered something else: Many of the people in its large study were not particularly satisfied with their domestic life. For one thing, they’re increasingly struggling to feel a sense of home in the places they live; 29% of people surveyed around the world felt more at home in other places than the space where they live every day. A full 35% of people in cities felt this way.
Ikea surveyed 22,000 people in 22 countries, and came up with six visions for the future of our homes: “See Ikea’s 6 visions for how we’ll live in the future.”
* The Honourable Schoolboy
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As we settle in, we might send pointed birthday greeting to Nicolas-Jacques Conté; he was born on this date in 1755. A painter, balloonist, and army officer, he is best remembered as the inventor of the modern pencil. At a time when the French Republic was at that time under economic blockade and unable to import graphite from Great Britain, its main source of the material, Conté was asked by Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot to create an alternative. Conté mixed powdered graphite with clay and pressed the material between two half-cylinders of wood– forming the first the modern pencil. He received a patent for the invention in 1795, and formed la Société Conté to make them. He also invented the conté crayon (named after him), a hard pastel stick used by artists.
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