An Apology for the Builder

An Apology For the Builder, #YIMBYpress' new edition of the classic 1685 essay by Nicholas Barbon, with preface by @SonjaTrauss, edited and with introduction by @tmccormick, and readings on the origins & present of terraced & speculative housing, is coming in 2021!

@SonjaTrauss @Key_Z_E @BenRossTransit @emilymbadger @qdbui speculative *development*, or building, uses prospective gain for useful ends like new housing; speculative *ownership* seeks/receives gain for mostly inaction, is far more pervasive & larger, unproductive, even harmful. The key point of @SonjaTrauss's & my book @BuildersApology

@emilymbadger @qdbui It also (partly) explains the tsunami of investor purchases underway in the country, which further limits the supply available for homebuyers and changes the fabric of neighborhoods

The pandemic housing market has created wealth on a vast scale for just about anyone who owns a home. It’s inseparable from the housing affordability crisis for anyone who doesn’t: nytimes.com/2022/05/01/ups… With @qdbui

@MissSarahWise @BishopsgateInst I'd love to take this! excellent topic and entrepreneurial knowledging. I feel (imaginatively) half-resident in London, because immersed in research on it for @BuildersApology book, 1/2 grew up there, dual citizen of UK, & the unparalleled richness of London in representation

@helen__carter @RegenerationEX @JosephConmee @JohnMcGrath95 related, fun, & informative, but total contrast, is this docudrama centering on another local Tony working at Granada: #CoronationStreet creator Tony Warren, in "The Road to Coronation Street": youtu.be/9SmD_xEgwpc. I was on early @itvcorrie tear for @BuildersApology research

@leohollis @tmccormick @qurbanist @SonjaTrauss @PressYimby let's make it happen!

@tmccormick @qurbanist @BuildersApology @SonjaTrauss @PressYimby This looks fascinating. I am still fascinated by Barbon. He comes into my new book too. I would love to read this

Publication day!

This looks like an incredible re-print project. As Gen X, Y and Z chart a return course back to human-scale, incremental #urbanism, these historical texts will help guide the way.

@SonjaTrauss no wonder an enterprising Englishman just back from studying in Holland thought, in this mess, what'd be tight and make bank is, mass production & cookie-cutter row-housing, all to the new standards. So #NicholasBarbon invents mass speculative & terraced housing in London, 1670

"The scurvyest Things in the World, as appears very plainly from the whole Streets still remaining, nothing but Wood and Plaister and nasty little Windows, w but 1 little Casement to open. The Stories were low and widen'd 1 over another, all awry and in Appearance ready to fall."

Francis Maximilian Misson, a Frenchman who fled to England after the 1685 Edict of Nantes, looked at the bits of London that didn't burn in the 1666 fire and called the houses: h/t @tmccormick 😂

@lucyinglis @MissSarahWise @BFHouse I'd definitely like that, but am out on a western Farthest Shore here eight hours behind the curve, missing the News again. Recorded, by any chance? btw working on book project @BuildersApology about origins of Georgian terraced housing and implications for today.

@eean @SonjaTrauss @NGryphon @alfred_twu @mattyglesias idea of curved terraced housing, & assembling row/townhouses to larger visual wholes, comes from John Wood, the Elder (1704-54)'s combining of London speculative rowhouse with a vision of Roman/Druid grand form, in Bath; as we discuss in @BuildersApology book. c/@RottenInDenmark

@eean @SonjaTrauss @NGryphon @alfred_twu @mattyglesias Falowiec in #Przymorze, #Gdańsk, Poland - Europe's largest residential building, 850m long. #Falowiec is a general name for this type of Polish block built in late '60s to early 70s, based on 'falowce' = 'waves', describing the form. The Soviet kid had similar idea w/river on top

@eean @SonjaTrauss see also: #NITSEVT - Scientific and Research Centre of Electronic Computer Technology building, Moscow. 736 meters long. nicevt.ru h/t @NGryphon c/@alfred_twu @mattyglesias

Early yimby propaganda

@bswud @SCP_Hughes @Policy_Exchange fascinating, & compelling work! Intrigued to see Georgian terrace as exemplar, & the analysis of Great Estates management, b/c working on edited volume @buildersapology likewise finding origins of terraced mass housing in interplay of decentralized bldg & Great Estates' oversight

At Policy Exchange today we offer a new way of tackling the housing crisis. By giving local residents control, and a large share in the upside, we can build beautiful, sustainable, and walkable new houses where they are most needed policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/upl…