Why all us smirking hipsters are wrong about the Palmer fire

Have spoken with a ton of people over the past few days who are sort of happy Geoff Palmer’s partially-built apartment building burned down.

Obviously being happy about a fire is kind of weird. But no one got hurt (that I know of) and many people loath Palmer’s buildings because they’re ugly and anti-social (in the sense that they are designed as fortresses protecting their inhabitants from the neighborhood).

I have to admit that I’ve been walking around thinking about the fire as an act of righteous architectural vigilantism.

But that view is wrong.

I dislike Palmer’s buildings for the same reasons everyone else does

But he has built thousands of apartments. If you care about housing being affordable, then you have to be in favor of people adding to the supply. And Palmer has added more to the supply of apartments in LA than almost anyone else.