I recently saw a law review article quote an article with the headline: "Are Hedge Funds And Equity Funds Driving Up The Cost of Housing?" The article wrote that there is a "more plausible hypothesis behind the housing affordability crisis—namely, that hedge funds and private equity firms have been … [Read more...]
Digging deeper on natalism and urbanism
In a recent blog post at Planetizen, I criticized the idea that higher birth rates can only be achieved in car-dominated suburbia. In this post, I pointed out that a) not all walkable places have as little floor space as my Manhattan apartment, b) that some (admittedly unusual) urban places have … [Read more...]
Morton’s Fork and urbanism
I recently read about an interesting logical fallacy: the Morton's fork fallacy, in which a conclusion "is drawn in several different ways that contradict each other." The original "Morton" was a medieval tax collector who, according to legend, believed that someone who spent lavishly you were … [Read more...]
Review: Key to the City, by Sara Bronin
In Key to the City, Sara Bronin both critiques and defends zoning. Like numerous other commentators (including myself) Bronin points out that anti-density regulations such as minimum lot size and minimum parking requirements artificially increase housing costs. Her critique of the latter … [Read more...]
Let’s Talk About Soundview
In New York City, one common argument against congestion pricing (or in fact, against any policy designed to further the interests of anyone outside an automobile) is that because outer borough residents are all car-dependent suburbanites, only Manhattanites would benefit. For example, film … [Read more...]
Decriminalizing Jaywalking: The Early Data
In recent years, three states have legalized or decriminalized jaywalking: Virginia and Nevada did so in early 2021, and California legalized jaywalking at the start of 2023. The traditional argument for anti-jaywalking laws is that they protect pedestrians from themselves, by limiting their … [Read more...]
Where sale prices are going up
The conventional wisdom (based on Census estimates) seems to me that urban cores have lost population since COVID began, but are beginning to recover. But mid-decade Census estimates are often quite flawed. These estimates are basically just guesses based on complicated mathetmatical formulas, and … [Read more...]
Do People Travel Less In Dense Places?
Every so often I read something like the following exchange: "City defender: if cities were more compact and walkable, people wouldn't have to spend hours commuting in their cars and would have more free time. Suburb defender: but isn't it true that in New York City, the city with the most … [Read more...]
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