What If Having Kids Didn’t Require Moving to the ’Burbs?
A start-up in Texas is manufacturing stylish urban rowhomes with babies in mind. The story of the American Housing Corporation partly begins at church. “Children are good,” Fijan mused. “I guess I reject the idea that people don’t want to have children. I think in fact they do, even people in the city. I think it’s more that they feel like they can’t—or they look around and implicitly get the idea that no one does this.” Fijan went on to cofound the American Housing Corporation (AHC) with this hope in mind: to make having babies in the city feel affordable, normal, and feasible long-term. Based in Austin, Texas, where Fijan and his family eventually moved to be nearer to family, AHC is at once a manufacturer, a real estate developer, and a venture capital–funded startup. The company makes just one thing: factory-built row homes designed for families—what Fijan believes can be the new…