You should own stock in your city

hared Roof is a standard-looking mixed-use development in Seattle’s Phinney Ridge neighborhood: 35 residential units with some ground-floor retail and the amenities we usually see in new developments like this—a gym, bike room, and common spaces. Perfectly lovely, but seemingly standard fare.

But there is something different about Shared Roof, and that is its ownership structure.

The building was funded by ten friends who contributed the capital needed to bring the project to life. Those funders became shareholders in the legal entity that directly owns the building, entitled to dividends as the building generates revenue and to any appreciation in the value of their equity over time.

The really interesting part, though, is that several of the project’s investors are also tenants.

You might expect that to mean they just get a free unit. What actually happens is that they pay market rent, like anyone else, because their role as a shareholder is separate from their role as a tenant. As the building generates value, the corporate structure distributes it back to the people who collectively own it.

Shared Roof is one building on one street in one neighborhood, but the arrangement points toward something bigger: a different way of thinking about how we create, collect, and distribute the value that cities create.

You should own stock in your city

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