I am currently reading A Fortress in Brooklyn, a (mostly) fine book about the relationship between Williamsburg's Satmar Hasidim and real estate policy.One chapter discusses Satmar opposition to bike lanes in their neighborhood, and suggests that one cause of this opposition might be that … [Read more...]
Financialization and housing costs
One common explanation for high rents is something called "financialization." Literally, this term of course makes no sense: any form of investment, good or bad, involves finances.But I think that the most common non-incoherent use of the term is something like this: rich people and … [Read more...]
contradictory anti-housing arguments
Over the years, I've heard a wide variety of arguments against new housing. One of them is the "mysterious foreign investor" argument. According to this theory, new urban housing will all be bought up by billionaire foreign investors, who will purchase the property and never rent it out, thus … [Read more...]
Local iniquity
There was an interesting article in the New York Times magazine this week on the rise of extended stay hotels, which specialize in renting to a group within the working poor- people who have the cash for weekly rent, but cannot easily rent traditional apartments due to their poor credit … [Read more...]
Latest rent research
A recent paper by UCLA researchers discusses 2019-20 literature on the relationship between new construction and rents. The article discusses five papers; four of them found that new housing consistently lowers rents in nearby buildings.For example, Kate Pennington wrote a paper on the … [Read more...]
Why Houston Isn’t An Argument for Zoning
Someone just posted a video on Youtube using Houston, Texas as an argument in favor of zoning. The logic of the video is: Houston is horrible; Houston has no zoning; therefore every city should have conventional zoning.This video and its logic are impressively wrong, for several reasons. … [Read more...]
What’s Wrong With Hong Kong?
One common argument against new housing is that the laws of supply and demand simply don’t apply to dense cities like New York, San Francisco ands Hong Kong, because new housing or upzoning might raise land prices.* After all (some people argue) Hong Kong is really dense and really … [Read more...]
Are increased levels of homeownership good for affordability? No… and yes.
For over a century, policymakers have argued that homeowners take better care of their neighborhood and are just generally more desirable in other ways. As early as 1917, the federal Labor Department created a propaganda campaign to encourage home ownership. And in 1925, Commerce … [Read more...]