In Santa Fe and Los Alamos, what I can’t get my head around is how we balance the need for housing with the water limitations. Do you have thoughts on that?
I absolutely have thoughts on that! :) I need to get crackin on an article on this because it comes up a lot—it's one of the most common concerns people raise about housing growth in the Southwest. The bottom line is: we balance it through dense, infill development. That actually helps with water constraints rather than hurting them.
Multifamily housing uses much less water per person than single-family homes with individual yards and irrigation. Dense development also makes *all* infrastructure more efficient—more people using the same length of pipe and fewer holes in the ground for utilities.
Both Santa Fe and Los Alamos are in better water positions than many assume. Santa Fe increased population by 25% since 1995 while *decreasing* total water consumption by 33% through conservation efforts. Los Alamos uses only 70-75% of its water allocation, leaving a substantial buffer for growth. Most New Mexico counties are fully or over-allocated—Los Alamos isn't. But we shouldn't squander that gift. We should grow wisely.
A friend shared a 1969 article in "The Los Alamos Atom" that shows our country used 427 gallons per day, per person back then, which it called "remarkably high" and "a matter of concern" even by the standards of the day. We've dropped that to something like 125 (I need to check on that actual number) even with growth. Even with *dumb* growth. With smart growth we can do better still.
The regional picture matters too: residential water use is a tiny fraction of total water consumption compared to agriculture, which uses about 80% of New Mexico's water. A few thousand new residents in dense housing represents an even smaller fraction of regional water use.
So we really can manage our precious water more wisely while building more housing—and housing that's more affordable and stops displacement!
I missed last week's discussion as life has gotten in the way but I am so happy to be finishing this book out with you!
Chuck Marohn was in KC last week and I went to his talk. There were so many Strong Towns-ish ideas in this final chapter, and a big one is the tension between housing-as-shelter and housing-as-financial-instrument. Chuck spent a good amount of his talk on this, and Applebaum mentions it as well. This could be (and I'm sure is) its own book-length topic. I don't know how we make that transition given how many boomers are relying on their home values as their nest egg for retirement, which many are at or reaching in the next 5-10 years. As much as I love the idea of returning to a world where housing is a consumer good, it does strike me that people my age (Millennial) have already lost out on the investment vehicle of pensions enjoyed by prior generations, plus our social security won't be fully funded, and now we aren't to have real estate as an option either? The housing theory of everything strikes again - it'll be a complex needle to thread so that people do in fact end up better off if/when we build so much that the cost of housing falls significantly.
There was a lot in this chapter that ties in with ideas in the zeitgeist (hello, abundance) and also personal things my husband and I have been weighing as we have been looking at houses this month (and also considering whether we wouldn't prefer building a small ADU on our current lot instead). I think I'll save some of those thoughts for your wrap up.
But just one other thing that Applebaum lightly touches on in this chapter that has interested me throughout the book. He considers whether the generations of mobility were the exception and that our current stasis is a permanent return to a way of life where people, for the most part, stay near where they were born. I think this may be the case, because of how different our economic situation is compared with the economies of the late 1800s, mid-century, and late-20th century. For one thing, healthcare is an enormous part of our economy. It's like, that and the AI speculation propping us up right now. Healthcare jobs are decent, but they're not super dynamic. And they're scattered throughout the country. Someone wanting to become a doctor or nurse may need to move to their next biggest town over, but they don't need to switch states or in many cases even the county they live in. As for the other jobs Applebaum mentions that are still a draw to the big cities - they're in tech, financing, law, and consulting. These aren't jobs that you can show up and do if you have some basic skills and a solid work ethic, like the factory jobs in Flint, or the farmstead life from an earlier generation. These are jobs moated by years of very expensive education. I just keep coming back to the idea that it's really economic mobility that matters here, and that in the future it's probably still the jobs at the very top of the food chain that will require people to move to certain giant cities, but that for the rest of us it's about finding abundance where we are already.
Those are great thoughts! I was missing your commentary last week and I thought about messaging you but didn't want to seem needy. :) I had also been planning to drop my "final thoughts" post this morning (keeping to my Sunday schedule) but after publishing 3 articles in one week, I needed a break, so I am hanging onto my wrapup piece for a little longer. It is finished... except for the reader comments! So I am very glad you popped in with yours. I'm going to mull over your thoughts about our transition to a knowledge economy (and how that will fit into ideas of abundance/mobility) for a bit as well.
"Tolerance means restoring the humbler rungs of the housing ladder. Reformers once pathologized boarding houses and immigrant tenements as unsanitary or immoral, as if the buildings were the problem rather than the poverty of those they housed."
*Humble rungs* are not just architectural forms, they can also be social practices. When Pauline Rosenfield was forced to economize because her husband was a drunk, she moved her daughters into a *larger* house and took in boarders. This house had been owned by the wealthiest person in Texas in 1860 from 1856 through 1863, but had filtered down by 1877. https://bnjd.substack.com/p/the-nichols-rice-cherry-house
"The most intolerant bloc has always been incumbent homeowners. They are the primary veto point—the “privileged and propertied” of Appelbaum’s subtitle."
"Always" is too strong. This has been true for a century or maybe a little more, which makes this very entrenched in our contemporary culture. However it's worth pointing out that it has not always been the case in the US: https://bnjd.substack.com/p/an-elite-mansion-a-courthouse-and
In Santa Fe and Los Alamos, what I can’t get my head around is how we balance the need for housing with the water limitations. Do you have thoughts on that?
I absolutely have thoughts on that! :) I need to get crackin on an article on this because it comes up a lot—it's one of the most common concerns people raise about housing growth in the Southwest. The bottom line is: we balance it through dense, infill development. That actually helps with water constraints rather than hurting them.
Multifamily housing uses much less water per person than single-family homes with individual yards and irrigation. Dense development also makes *all* infrastructure more efficient—more people using the same length of pipe and fewer holes in the ground for utilities.
Both Santa Fe and Los Alamos are in better water positions than many assume. Santa Fe increased population by 25% since 1995 while *decreasing* total water consumption by 33% through conservation efforts. Los Alamos uses only 70-75% of its water allocation, leaving a substantial buffer for growth. Most New Mexico counties are fully or over-allocated—Los Alamos isn't. But we shouldn't squander that gift. We should grow wisely.
A friend shared a 1969 article in "The Los Alamos Atom" that shows our country used 427 gallons per day, per person back then, which it called "remarkably high" and "a matter of concern" even by the standards of the day. We've dropped that to something like 125 (I need to check on that actual number) even with growth. Even with *dumb* growth. With smart growth we can do better still.
The regional picture matters too: residential water use is a tiny fraction of total water consumption compared to agriculture, which uses about 80% of New Mexico's water. A few thousand new residents in dense housing represents an even smaller fraction of regional water use.
So we really can manage our precious water more wisely while building more housing—and housing that's more affordable and stops displacement!
Super enlightening! Yes, you should write a full piece about that.
I missed last week's discussion as life has gotten in the way but I am so happy to be finishing this book out with you!
Chuck Marohn was in KC last week and I went to his talk. There were so many Strong Towns-ish ideas in this final chapter, and a big one is the tension between housing-as-shelter and housing-as-financial-instrument. Chuck spent a good amount of his talk on this, and Applebaum mentions it as well. This could be (and I'm sure is) its own book-length topic. I don't know how we make that transition given how many boomers are relying on their home values as their nest egg for retirement, which many are at or reaching in the next 5-10 years. As much as I love the idea of returning to a world where housing is a consumer good, it does strike me that people my age (Millennial) have already lost out on the investment vehicle of pensions enjoyed by prior generations, plus our social security won't be fully funded, and now we aren't to have real estate as an option either? The housing theory of everything strikes again - it'll be a complex needle to thread so that people do in fact end up better off if/when we build so much that the cost of housing falls significantly.
There was a lot in this chapter that ties in with ideas in the zeitgeist (hello, abundance) and also personal things my husband and I have been weighing as we have been looking at houses this month (and also considering whether we wouldn't prefer building a small ADU on our current lot instead). I think I'll save some of those thoughts for your wrap up.
But just one other thing that Applebaum lightly touches on in this chapter that has interested me throughout the book. He considers whether the generations of mobility were the exception and that our current stasis is a permanent return to a way of life where people, for the most part, stay near where they were born. I think this may be the case, because of how different our economic situation is compared with the economies of the late 1800s, mid-century, and late-20th century. For one thing, healthcare is an enormous part of our economy. It's like, that and the AI speculation propping us up right now. Healthcare jobs are decent, but they're not super dynamic. And they're scattered throughout the country. Someone wanting to become a doctor or nurse may need to move to their next biggest town over, but they don't need to switch states or in many cases even the county they live in. As for the other jobs Applebaum mentions that are still a draw to the big cities - they're in tech, financing, law, and consulting. These aren't jobs that you can show up and do if you have some basic skills and a solid work ethic, like the factory jobs in Flint, or the farmstead life from an earlier generation. These are jobs moated by years of very expensive education. I just keep coming back to the idea that it's really economic mobility that matters here, and that in the future it's probably still the jobs at the very top of the food chain that will require people to move to certain giant cities, but that for the rest of us it's about finding abundance where we are already.
Those are great thoughts! I was missing your commentary last week and I thought about messaging you but didn't want to seem needy. :) I had also been planning to drop my "final thoughts" post this morning (keeping to my Sunday schedule) but after publishing 3 articles in one week, I needed a break, so I am hanging onto my wrapup piece for a little longer. It is finished... except for the reader comments! So I am very glad you popped in with yours. I'm going to mull over your thoughts about our transition to a knowledge economy (and how that will fit into ideas of abundance/mobility) for a bit as well.
"Tolerance means restoring the humbler rungs of the housing ladder. Reformers once pathologized boarding houses and immigrant tenements as unsanitary or immoral, as if the buildings were the problem rather than the poverty of those they housed."
*Humble rungs* are not just architectural forms, they can also be social practices. When Pauline Rosenfield was forced to economize because her husband was a drunk, she moved her daughters into a *larger* house and took in boarders. This house had been owned by the wealthiest person in Texas in 1860 from 1856 through 1863, but had filtered down by 1877. https://bnjd.substack.com/p/the-nichols-rice-cherry-house
Great point!
"The most intolerant bloc has always been incumbent homeowners. They are the primary veto point—the “privileged and propertied” of Appelbaum’s subtitle."
"Always" is too strong. This has been true for a century or maybe a little more, which makes this very entrenched in our contemporary culture. However it's worth pointing out that it has not always been the case in the US: https://bnjd.substack.com/p/an-elite-mansion-a-courthouse-and