Market Urbanism MUsings September 28, 2018

1. Announcements:

MUsings are back!!  This week, we’ll get you caught up on the latest on our site and social media.

Be sure to check out and share the new documentary video produced by The Institute for Humane Studies’ Josh Oldham, in collaboration with MU’s Nolan Gray and Sandy Ikeda.

2. Recently at Market Urbanism:

California Legislation Threatens to Become Law and Build More Housing by Martha Ekdahl

The bill, AB 2923, specifically targets the San Francisco Bay Area—making it easier than ever for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to build housing on the land it owns around its transit stations.

Light and Air, Sound and Fury; or, Was the Equitable Life Building Panic Only About Shadows? by Nolan Gray

In city after city, zoning was pitched as a way to preserve property values. And as the Federal Housing Administration marched across the country as a kind of dark Johnny Appleseed for Euclidean zoning, demanding use segregation, single-family zoning, and low densities in exchange for subsidized mortgages, the agency always defended its demands as an attempt to protect property values.

Video: How Zoning Laws Are Holding Back America’s Cities by Nolan Gray

It’s an understatement to say that zoning is a dry subject. But in a new video for the Institute for Humane Studies, Josh Oldham and Professor Sanford Ikeda (a regular contributor to this blog) manage to breath new life into this subject, accessibly explaining how zoning has transformed America’s cities.

The Foreign Buyers Are Taking Over (Not!) by Michael Lewyn

A headline in the Boston Globe screams: “Boston’s new luxury towers appear to house few local residents.” The headline is based on a report by the leftist Institute for Policy Studies, which claims that in twelve Boston condo buildings, “64 percent do not claim a residential exemption, a clear indication that the condo owners are not using their units as their primary residence.”*

Housing Still Suffers the Same Ills That Caused the Great Recession—Just Not the Ones You Think by Albert Gustafson

The subprime mortgage crisis that toppled the global economy just a decade ago has been supplanted on Google trends by “housing crisis 2018.” This time, the crisis isn’t an overabundance of housing; it’s a chronic housing shortage.

Why Do We Hate Developers? by Nolan Gray

I don’t begrudge the owner of the corner grocery every time I buy a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk, and I hope you don’t either. In fact, most of us are probably happy that folks like doctors and dentists earn a lot for what they do. So why are developers, who provide shelter, any different?

3. At the Market Urbanism Facebook Group:

Nolan Gray at Citylab: When the Federal Government Takes on Local Zoning

Randy Shaw at BeyondChron wrote, Why Can’t YIMBYs and Tenant Activists Get Along?  and Progress, Sense of Urgency Greets YIMBYTown 2018

Matt Robare wrote, It’s the suburbs, not the towers, stupid

Via Len Conly: The Transformation of Parking

Via Rocco Fama: Sidewalk vending is decriminalized across California

Via Joe Wolf: Atlanta’s sprawl isn’t just ‘the market meeting demand’?—?it’s a problem to take seriously

Via Rebecca Menes: The Harsh Truth About Progressive Cities

Via Shawn Ruest: Elizabeth Warren’s New Bill Would Spend $500 Billion on Housing

Via Matt Robare:  In Sherman Oaks, NIMBYs Loudly Draw A Line Against Homeless Housing — And Threaten Recall

Via Rocca Fama: Maybe NIMBYs Don’t Hate New Housing: They Just Hate Developers
A new study explores the real motivations behind the “evil developer” narrative.

via Scott De Lange Boom, “Vancouver’s election has an unabashedly YIMBY candidate running on upzoning”

4. Stephen Smith‘s tweet of the month:

Tweeted this before but I’m so excited that I’m tweeting it again: Houston is doubling the amount of land where developers can build without parking, expanding the zone into EaDo and Midtown https://t.co/glx8fF18q1 pic.twitter.com/ew1s1mZG3A

— Market Urbanism (@MarketUrbanism) September 5, 2018