Suburbs have been around for as long as there have been urbs – cities, that is – a fact Robert Bruegmann reminds us of in his excellent book Sprawl. And as sociologist Max Weber in The City and historian Henri Pirenne in Medieval Cities remind us, it’s often in the younger, freer suburbs rather … [Read more...]
NIMBYism as an Argument Against Urbanism
In his new book The Human City, Joel Kotkin tries to use NIMBYism as an argument against urbanism. He cites numerous examples of NIMBYism in wealthy city neighborhoods, and suggests that these examples rebut "the largely unsupported notion that ever more people want to move 'back to the city'." … [Read more...]
Airbnb Crowding Out Is A Symptom, Not A Cause Of Housing Shortages
When journalists, NIMBYs, politicians, and activists make claims about Airbnb taking potential full-time housing stock and converting it to leisure space, they operate under the assumption that the housing supply must be fixed. This assumption is half true: By no means must the housing … [Read more...]
Urban[ism] Legend: A Home Is A Good Investment
Despite its poor track record, homeownership is the bad investment idea that never seems to die. Even though the financial crisis revealed the risks that homeowners take on by making highly leveraged purchases, policymakers are still developing new programs to encourage home buying. Both the Clinton … [Read more...]
Home-Sharing and Housing Supply
One common argument against Airbnb and other home-sharing companies is that they reduce housing supply by taking housing units off the long-term market.* As I have written elsewhere, I don't think home-sharing affects housing supply enough to matter. But even leaving aside the empirical question of … [Read more...]
The “Global Buyers” Argument
One common argument against building new market-rate housing is that there is an infinite supply of rich foreigners willing to soak up new supply. One obvious flaw in this argument is that housing prices do occasionally go down even in expensive places. But even leaving aside this reality, the … [Read more...]
Supply and Demand: A Response to 48hills
In a recent piece published by 48hills, former Berkeley planning commissioner Zelda Bronstein takes aim at...well...too many things for me to succinctly recount in detail. So instead of attempting to respond to every single argument littered throughout her 7,000 word article, I’ll focus on the big … [Read more...]
Episode 02: Emily Hamilton on Land-Use Regulation and the Cost of Housing
When I was scheduling out the first few episodes of the Market Urbanism Podcast, it seemed natural to start with one of Market Urbanism's favorite topics: the relationship between land-use regulation and rising housing costs in American cities. This week I sit down with Emily Hamilton, a regular … [Read more...]
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