Continuing our weekly 'Explainer' series, today's SkyriseCities crosspost provides an overview of the term 'tetraphobia.' Although the fear of the number four may seem like a bit of a departure from our usual mandate, the increasingly global nature of Toronto's real estate market makes tetraphobia a very real influence on new development. In recent years, many of Toronto's new-build condos lack a fourth floor, and a fourteenth, etc., and site addresses are now occasionally changed to no longer bear the unlucky number. SkyriseCities explains why:

An elevator in Hong Kong, no 4, no 13, no 14, etc., image by Flickr user glenn forbes via Creative Commons

Trying to determine the height of a building in storeys can often be an exercise in futility. For many developers around the world, superstition takes hold, and it may prove easier for the inquiring mind to simply count the number of physical floors in a building. While triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13) usually disrupts sensical building numbering in the Western world, tetraphobia has similar implications in the East Asian and Southeast Asian nations. 

You can find the rest of the story on our sister site, SkyriseCities.com