Autonomous vehicles work. They are already replacing full-time service drivers in Uber, Lyft, and taxis.https://twitter.com/aarmlovi/status/1857439087843516481Delivery vehicles might come soon. Corporate fleet vehicles. And the big jump, of course, will be when they're available as … [Read more...]
Colorado housing reform wins in Round 2
Last year disappointed pro-housing advocates in Colorado, as Governor Polis's flagship reform was defeated by the state legislature. But Polis and his legislative allies tried again this year, and yesterday the governor signed into law a package of reforms which cover much of the ground of last … [Read more...]
YIMBY wins again in Vermont
On March 25, the city council of Burlington, VT, voted to pass a major zoning reform that one observer of Vermont politics (X.com’s pseudonymous @NotaBot) compared to the celebrated overhaul of Minneapolis’s zoning code.Burlington - the largest city in Vermont, at 45,000 inhabitants - has not … [Read more...]
New Report: Georgia Not Quite an Unregulated Paradise
In a recent report from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, Chris Denson and J. Thomas Perdue compile the strictest minimum lot size regulations and minimum home size regulations from a range of cities and counties in Georgia. 31 of Georgia’s 159 counties mandate minimum lot sizes (in … [Read more...]
Gentrification: An LVT Would Do That
In many cities, poor people occupy valuable urban land close to downtown jobs, amenities, and transit. They can afford to live there because the housing stock in inner areas is usually older. If it hasn't been completely renovated, the result can be quite cheap, even if the land is pretty … [Read more...]
New Report on Massachusetts’s Building Code Confirms: It’s Harder to Build Energy-Efficient Housing When You Don’t Let People Build Anything
Photo by Cloris Ying on UnsplashThe state of Massachusetts lets municipal governments choose how strictly they regulate energy efficiency in buildings. Fifty-two of the state’s municipalities use the base building code, whereas 299, including Boston, have opted into the stricter “stretch” … [Read more...]
Rhode Island’s housing process package
"Renting in Providence puts city councilors in precarious situations." That was the Providence Journal's leading headline a few days ago, as the legislature waited for Governor Daniel McKee to sign a pile of housing-related bills (Update: He signed them all). Rhode Island doesn't have a superstar … [Read more...]
An Anti-Anti-NIMBY article
During the Trump Administration, liberals sometimes criticized conservatives for being anti-anti-Trump: that is, not directly championing Trump's more obnoxious behaviour, but devoting their energies to criticizing people who criticized him.Similarly, I've seen some articles recently that were … [Read more...]