Will Americans want more housing if it looks prettier?
Noah Smith
· Noahpinion
· April 11, 2026 at 09:17
· ⏱ 12 min read
| Read on Substack ↗
Summary
Noah Smith argues that while YIMBYs are increasingly addressing building aesthetics, changing architectural styles alone will not meaningfully increase public support for housing construction. Instead, deeper urban reforms—transit, mixed-use zoning, public safety—are necessary to make cities desirable and politically viable for densification, implying no immediate financial market catalysts from the housing aesthetic debate.
•Patrick Collison (YIMBY backer) claims the movement ignored aesthetics; California YIMBY has since released a plan encouraging ornamentation and code reform for more European-style buildings.
•Empirical evidence from Stamps (2014) and Nasar & Stamps (2008) suggests that current objective design standards (e.g., façade articulation) have limited payoff compared to coherent style, material quality, and greenery.
•Americans often ridicule European-style buildings as 'pastiche' when transplanted; Los Angeles planning department explicitly discourages imitating historic styles.
•Pietrzak & Mendelberg (2025) find that traditional brick facades fail to move the needle on housing support; Broockman, Elmendorf & Kalla (2026) show aesthetic objections affect development views but no specific design standards have been proven to boost support.
•Tokyo, a city that builds abundant housing, uses plain concrete zakkyo buildings; its appeal comes from walkable streets, mixed-use zoning, public transit, and safety—not ornamentation.
•Texas builds boxy, functional apartments and single-family homes; housing abundance there is driven by pro-growth culture and politics, not architectural beauty.