How America Accidentally Banned Good Apartments

Watch my next video investigating AI Data Centers: https://nebula.tv/videos/stewarthicks... Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/stewarthicks This ordinary-looking staircase is at the center of one of America’s most consequential housing debates. In most of the United States, apartment buildings taller than three stories generally need two separate exit stairs. But architects, housing advocates, and lawmakers argue that this rule has also made many small apartment buildings difficult—or financially impossible—to construct. The alternative is known as a point access block: an apartment building organized around one central stair and elevator core. Removing the second staircase can eliminate long interior corridors, make narrow infill sites easier to develop, and allow apartments to have windows on multiple sides. That can mean more daylight, better ventilation, and more practical three- and four-bedroom homes. Critics see something more dangerous: the return of single-stair tenements and buildings with no backup escape route during a fire. In this video, we examine how a staircase can shape an entire neighborhood. We compare Lincoln Park in Chicago, where older courtyard buildings and walk-up apartments became difficult to replace, with Capitol Hill in Seattle, where the building code has allowed single-stair residential buildings as tall as six stories under specific safety conditions. But this video is not really just about stairs. It is about how zoning laws, parking requirements, permitting systems, and building codes quietly determine which kinds of homes are possible. When cities make small apartment buildings illegal or uneconomical, development does not stop. It becomes concentrated into fewer, larger, and often more expensive options. A single staircase will not solve the housing crisis. But it reveals how one technical rule can reshape apartment layouts, development economics, neighborhood demographics, and the kinds of cities America is able to build. #Architecture #HousingCrisis #UrbanPlanning SPECIAL THANKS Evan Montgomery — Coproducer Daniela Osorio Sanudo — Graphics Chris Campos — Camera JB Pritzker and Team CHAPTERS 00:00 - Controversial Stair 00:43 - Point Access Block 2:19 - Lincoln Park Approach 4:09 - Capitol Hill Approach 5:53 - Safety Impact 7:37 - Legislation 8:51 - Over Regulation 9:53 - Housing Variety BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. International Code Council. 2024 International Building Code: Section 1006.3.4—Single Exits. Establishes the circumstances under which residential stories may use a single exit under the model code. 2. Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections. 2021 Seattle Building Code, Chapter 10: Means of Egress. Section 1006.3.4 permits qualifying residential buildings with up to six stories above grade and no more than four apartments per floor to use a single exit. 3. Illinois General Assembly. Senate Bill 4061: County and Municipal Building Codes—Stairs. Proposed legislation permitting qualifying residential buildings of up to six stories to use a single stairway. 4. The Pew Charitable Trusts and Center for Building in North America. Small Single-Stairway Apartment Buildings Have Strong Safety Record. February 2025. Analysis of fire outcomes in jurisdictions that permit modern single-stair apartment buildings. 5. The Pew Charitable Trusts. “States Advance Single-Stairway Reforms to Expand Housing.” November 2025. Overview of state legislation, construction costs, fire safety, and the national movement to reform stair requirements. 6. National Fire Protection Association. U.S. Experience with Sprinklers. Reports that the civilian death rate in home fires was substantially lower when automatic sprinklers were present. 7. U.S. Fire Administration. Hotel and Motel Fires, 2014–2016. Includes a history of the 1946 Winecoff Hotel fire, its single unprotected stairway, and its influence on subsequent building-code changes. 8. Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Community Data Snapshot: Lincoln Park. Demographic, housing, land-use, and economic data for Chicago’s Lincoln Park community area. ATTRIBUTIONS Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images, Storyblocks, and Shutterstock. Music provided by Epidemic Sound and includes music from Chromatic by Tom Fox    / @chromaticbytomfox  "