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 … [Read more...]
California Legislation Threatens to Become Law and Build More Housing
On August 23rd, a California assembly bill aimed at increasing transit-oriented development, like housing, was passed by the state senate, confirmed by the assembly, and headed to Governor Jerry Brown’s desk for signing. The bill, AB 2923, specifically targets the San Francisco Bay Area—making it … [Read more...]
No, this study does NOT support refusal to build housing
A recent headline in the Forbes blog screams: "Additional Housing Won't Make City More Affordable, Says Fed Study." This blog post cites a Federal Reserve Study showing that adding 5 percent more housing in the most desirable urban neighborhoods would lower rents by only 0.5 percent.But if you … [Read more...]
Two cheers for subsidized housing
A pure libertarian might argue that in an ideal world, there'd be no need for government-subsidized housing for low- and moderate-income households. Nevertheless, it seems to me that in the world we actually live in, even people generally opposed to the welfare state should favor more such … [Read more...]
does gentrification cause eviction?
I found an interesting new website: EvictionLab. This website contains eviction data by city for a large number of American communities.One might think that gentrifying cities and/or high cost cities have more evictions. But interestingly, low-cost, poor cities tend to have more evictions. … [Read more...]
Morton’s Fork and land use issues
I recently discovered a new logical fallacy: the "Morton's Fork" fallacy. This argument is one in which contradictory observations lead to the same conclusion. For example, if I argue that new housing near public transit is bad because it (1) spurs gentrification by bringing rich people into the … [Read more...]
Loving the Stranger- Not!
The Bible says again and again and again to “love the stranger”. Although this phrase has been interpreted in a variety of different ways, one highly plausible interpretation of this maxim is that we should be at least somewhat hospitable to newcomers and temporary sojourners in our … [Read more...]
The Case for Subsidizing Deed Restrictions
In most of my discussions of Houston here on the blog, I have always been quick to hedge that the city still subsidizes a system of quasi-private deed restrictions that control land use and that this is a bad thing. After reading Bernard Siegan’s sleeper market urbanist classic, “Land Use Without … [Read more...]