If there's one thing that unites TV and film since the fifties, it's the archetype of the dastardly developer - forever destroying homes and hiking rents. But it wasn't always this way. Where did this trope come from, and is it true? This week on Pop Culture Urbanism, I dig into the cronyism and red … [Read more...]
The Storper paper: not exactly a bombshell
Some commentators are slightly agog over an academic paper by Andres Rodrieguz-Pose and Michael Storper; Richard Florida writes that they shows that " the effect of [housing] supply has been blown far out of proportion. "Most of this paper isn't really about the effect of housing supply on … [Read more...]
The absence of gentrification causes displacement
Some progressives believe that gentrification causes displacement of poor people, that new market-rate housing causes such gentrification, and thus that new housing must be kept out of low-income neighborhoods.The first of these claims is based on the assumption that absent gentrification, … [Read more...]
How Lexington Can Expand Affordable Housing (Without Touching the UGB)
Lexington, Kentucky is a wonderful place, and that’s getting to be a problem. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the city: its urban amenities, thriving information economy, and unique local culture have brought in throngs of economic migrants from locales as exotic as Appalachia, … [Read more...]
Same Old Story: How Planners Continue to Drive Gentrification
Planners, like all professions, have their own useful mythologies. A popular one goes something like this: “Many years ago, us planners did naughty things. We pushed around the poor, demolished minority neighborhoods, and forced gentrification. But that’s all over today. Now we protect the … [Read more...]
ReasonTV on SF’s YIMBY Movement
Last week, Reason.tv (the multimedia outlet of Reason Magazine) published a video about San Francisco's YIMBY movement. The video describes the decades of underdevelopment in San Francisco as the result of community activism intended to limit the supply of new construction. As a result, San … [Read more...]
Lack of New Housing On The Westside Is Causing Gentrification Of East And South LA
[Research help for this article was provided by UCLA student Mitchell Boswell]The past 15 years have seen a hell of a lot of gentrification in LA. 15% of our poor neighborhoods have undergone gentrification since the year 2000, and it feels like things have only accelerated since the end of the … [Read more...]
Exclusionary Zoning and “Inclusionary Zoning” Don’t Mix
Inclusionary Zoning is an Oxymoron The term “Inclusionary Zoning” gives a nod to the fact that zoning is inherently exclusionary, but pretends to be somehow different. Given that, by definition, zoning is exclusionary, Inclusionary Zoning completely within the exclusionary paradigm is synonymous … [Read more...]