Alex Maiassi

You had the prime minister of Canada come to the groundbreaking.

What does that mean?

Okay, this is another thing that makes ZenOp unique.

It's not just the size of the towers, it's the speed at which they're getting built.

But recently, economists at MIT and Princeton came out with a clever new working paper that tried to do just that.

We'll put a link to it in our show notes.

The economists looked at the housing market in Los Angeles, where developers can buy land that is pre-approved for new construction, where someone's already gone out and gotten all the right permits.

And they found that on average, developers are willing to pay 50% more for land with all the right permits attached.

Over the years, more and more voters and politicians in Vancouver and in other cities have started to recognize the costs of zoning laws.

There was a moment recently when Jacob realized that maybe more Vancouver residents were on his side than he thought.

He was looking at this news report about the towers on his phone.

It was posted through like a TikTok, right?

And then you see it in the comment section.

They were saying, yimby, like, yes, in my backyard.

In the next three months or so, Sanak will open its doors to the public.

The first phase of the project will add about 1,400 new apartments.

For context, that's about a third of the number of new rental units built in Vancouver last year.

The Squamish expect that the full project, all 11 towers and 6,000 apartments, will finish by 2033.

Alex, I think it is time to put you on the spot because this entire episode was based on one of the chapters that you wrote for the Planet Money book.

Guys, I read that chapter.