Learning from the Past

Tacoma in the 1920's

“What goes around comes around”
“The past has a way of repeating itself”
“Hold onto your clothes long enough and they will come back in style”

Haven’t all of us said or thought these things before? They are all are ways of expressing a vague realization that what has happened once seems to happen again, given enough time.

Famous playwright William Shakespeare recognized this hundreds of years ago when he wrote “The past is a prologue to the future.”

Case in point – APARTMENTS!

The average apartment in 1920 was about 500 square feet in size, growing steadily in size until the 1990’s when the average had risen to more than 900 square feet. However, in the last 30 years the average size has FALLEN and will continue to do so as more and more studio and loft apartments are created to meet ever rising demand for efficient and affordable housing… apartment units that must be built on smaller and smaller parcels of land.

Savvy apartment developers are looking back 100 years, studying the lay-outs and innovations of those 500 square foot apartment units built in the 1920’s. They strive to identify what worked in the past and, tweaking things a bit to suit modern expectations, build it AGAIN!

Considering the past can result in opportunities for the future, especially for those involved in creating housing. But whether you are a real estate developer, Boeing worker or Walmart cashier… we all can benefit from looking back.