Most people don’t think much about curb cuts.
They’re those little ramps at street corners where the sidewalk slopes gently down to meet the street. If you’ve ever pushed a stroller, rolled a suitcase through an airport district, wheeled a bicycle across an intersection, or dragged a garbage bin to the curb, you’ve probably used one without giving it a second thought.
The interesting thing about curb cuts is that they weren’t built for most of us.
They were built because wheelchair users needed them.
For decades, most intersections simply ended in a six-inch concrete wall. To someone walking, it was a trivial obstacle. To someone using a wheelchair, it was an impassable barrier.
Disability advocates fought for curb cuts and countless other accessibility improvements, often facing resistance from people who argued they were too expensive, too burdensome, or only benefited a tiny minority of residents. Yet today it’s difficult to imagine a city without them. Once installed, they quickly proved useful not only to wheelchair users but also to parents with strollers, delivery workers, travelers with rolling luggage, cyclists, children, seniors, and just about everyone else.
Economists and urban planners sometimes refer to this phenomenon as the “curb cut effect.” Design for people at the margins, and you often end up improving life for everyone.
I think about that principle whenever housing developers talk about accessibility.
Too often, accessibility is framed as a special accommodation. A concession. An extra feature. Something added reluctantly to satisfy regulations or avoid legal trouble.
But what if we’ve been thinking about it backwards?
What if accessibility isn’t a niche concern at all?
What if it is simply one of the best ways to discover what makes housing work?
The Hidden Majority
The older I get, the more I suspect that much of our housing is designed around an imaginary person.
This person is perpetually healthy. Their knees never ache. Their eyesight remains sharp. They never push a stroller, break a leg, develop arthritis, undergo surgery, or grow old. They move effortlessly through stairways, narrow hallways, and cramped bathrooms. Their abilities never change.
It’s a remarkable achievement because none of us have ever met this person.
Real people are messier.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one in four American adults lives with a disability. That’s more than 70 million people. If people with disabilities formed their own nation, it would be one of the largest countries on Earth.
Yet even that statistic understates the reality.
Disability is often portrayed as a separate category of people, but disability advocates have long pointed out that this framing misses something important. Disability is not a niche experience. It is a human experience.
A teenager suffers a spinal injury in a car accident.
A construction worker develops chronic back pain.
A parent undergoes cancer treatment.
A veteran returns home with lasting injuries.
A retiree loses mobility.
A child is born with cerebral palsy.
Given enough time, nearly all of us will experience some form of disability, whether temporary or permanent.
This has led many advocates to describe the non-disabled population as merely the “temporarily able-bodied.”
That’s a profound way to think about housing.
Instead of designing homes for a small minority, we begin designing homes for our future selves.
The Day Americans Crawled Up the Capitol Steps
For much of American history, people with disabilities were expected to adapt to inaccessible spaces rather than society adapting to them.
Buildings lacked ramps.
Public transportation was often inaccessible.
Employers could openly discriminate.
Many Americans with disabilities found themselves excluded from schools, workplaces, businesses, and public life.
By 1990, disability rights advocates had spent years pushing Congress to pass what would become the Americans with Disabilities Act. Progress was slow, and frustration was growing.
Then came one of the most remarkable demonstrations in modern civil rights history.
On March 12, 1990, activists gathered in Washington, D.C., and marched toward the United States Capitol. When they reached the base of the Capitol’s imposing staircase, dozens of participants abandoned their wheelchairs, crutches, walkers, and other mobility devices.
Then they began climbing.
Step by step, they pulled themselves upward using only their arms and determination.
Among them was eight-year-old Jennifer Keelan, who had cerebral palsy. As television cameras rolled, she climbed the steps with her hands and knees, reportedly saying, “I’ll take all night if I have to.”
The protest became known as the Capitol Crawl.
Its message was impossible to ignore.
If Americans with disabilities had to crawl into their own Capitol building, what barriers were they encountering everywhere else?
Less than five months later, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law.
Today the ADA is widely regarded as one of the most significant civil rights laws in American history. Yet it’s easy to forget how controversial many of its provisions once seemed.
That’s often the story of progress.
Yesterday’s unreasonable demand becomes today’s common sense.
Accessibility Is Full of Things We Barely Notice
Consider a few features that many of us encounter every day:
Automatic doors.
Elevators.
Accessible parking spaces.
Captions on television.
Audio announcements in airports.
Curb cuts.
These features were often implemented because people with disabilities advocated for them.
Yet their benefits quickly extended far beyond their original purpose.
Captions help people watching in noisy environments.
Automatic doors help someone carrying groceries.
Elevators assist delivery workers, parents with strollers, and travelers with luggage.
Curb cuts benefit nearly everyone who moves through a city.
Again and again, accessibility reveals itself not as a special-interest concern but as a form of practical wisdom.
The same principle applies to housing.
A step-free entrance helps someone using a wheelchair. It also helps a parent pushing a stroller, a teenager wheeling in a bicycle, a mover carrying a couch, and an eighty-year-old returning from the grocery store.
A walk-in shower may allow someone with limited mobility to bathe independently. It also happens to be easier to clean, safer for older adults, and more convenient for anyone recovering from an injury.
Good lighting helps people with low vision. It also makes every resident feel safer and more comfortable.
Wider hallways accommodate wheelchairs. They also make homes feel more spacious and forgiving.
The accessible solution frequently turns out to be the better solution.
Why Are We Still Arguing About This?
One might assume these lessons settled the debate long ago.
They didn’t.
Even decades after passage of the ADA, accessibility improvements are still frequently opposed as too expensive, too burdensome, or unnecessary.
A good example emerged in the early 2010s, when requirements for accessible swimming pool lifts became the subject of fierce debate. Opponents argued that compliance costs would be excessive and that many facilities should be exempt. Deadlines were extended, implementation delayed, and the issue became a national political controversy.
The arguments sounded strikingly familiar.
Too expensive.
Too disruptive.
Benefits too few people.
Yet history suggests these objections often underestimate the broader value of accessibility.
The same criticisms were leveled against curb cuts.
Against elevators.
Against accessible transit.
Against the ADA itself.
Again and again, society discovers that making spaces usable by more people rarely diminishes quality of life. More often, it improves it.
Housing for the People We Become
At PEER Homes, we’re interested in housing that works not just for residents today but for the people they may become tomorrow.
That doesn’t mean every home needs expensive technology or specialized equipment.
In fact, some of the most valuable accessibility features are surprisingly ordinary:
A no-step entrance.
A slightly wider doorway.
Good lighting.
Reinforced bathroom walls that can accept grab bars in the future.
Lever-style door handles.
Thoughtful layouts.
These are not extravagant features. They are examples of foresight.
And foresight is something affordable housing desperately needs.
Too often, housing is designed around immediate budgets and immediate needs. We focus on getting units built, and rightly so. Housing shortages are real. But if we build homes that become difficult to use after an injury, an illness, or a few decades of aging, have we really solved the problem?
Or have we simply postponed it?
The lesson of the curb cut is that inclusion is not a cost imposed on society. It is an investment in a better society.
The people who fought for curb cuts were asking for something very specific. What they ultimately created was something universal.
The same may be true of housing.
When we design homes that work for people with disabilities, we often create homes that work better for parents, children, older adults, visitors, caregivers, and eventually ourselves.
That’s not merely accessible housing.
That’s good housing.
