In the Bay Area, one strategy for dealing with the housing shortage is to try to build ourselves out. But brand new housing can be too expensive for middle- and working-class people to move into. In San Francisco, it now costs $700,000-800,000 to build a new unit. That’s forced many developers in the area to ask if there is a way to build more quickly and for less money. There is. It’s the same way we build anything more efficiently—by using factories.
It’s been done before—you’ve probably heard of mobile double-wides from Sears Roebuck—but never on a scale big enough to work for higher-density apartment living. That’s because housing developers say they don’t want to take the risk on an untested method. But one affordable housing developer, BRIDGE, has finally taken the plunge. So have they pulled it off?
