Tag Houston

Glaeser on Affordability of NY vs Houston

Harvard Economist Ed Glaeser wrote an opinion piece in the New York Sun about the differences in housing affordability and other costs of living between Houston and New York. New York is naturally more expensive than Houston because the geographical constraints force higher density development, which is more expensive to build. New York’s highly regulated land use and zoning process adds more constraints that exacerbate this problem. On the flip side, Houston has few geographical constraints and relatively loose regulation, allowing the market to allocate housing more efficiently. In conclusion, Glaeser recommends that New York could do much to improve affordability by loosening it’s many regulations. NY Sun – Houston, New York Has a Problem Why is it so much more expensive in New York? For one, supplying housing in New York City costs much, much more — for a 1,500-square-foot apartment, the construction cost alone is more than $500,000. Also, part of the reason is geographic: an old port on a narrow island can’t grow outward, as Houston has, and the costs of building up — New York’s fate, especially in Manhattan — will always be higher than those of building out. And the unavoidable fact is that New York makes it harder to build housing than Chicago does — and a lot harder than Houston does. The permitting process in Manhattan is an arduous, unpredictable, multiyear odyssey involving a dizzying array of regulations, environmental, and other hosts of agencies. A further obstacle: rent control. When other municipalities dropped rent control after World War II, New York clung to it, despite the fact that artificially reduced rents discourage people from building new housing. Houston, by contrast, has always been gung ho about development. Houston’s builders have managed — better than in any other American city — to make the […]

Historic Preservation Can Work in the Marketplace

Houston Strategies – Historic preservation should be a neighborhood choice “In Houston’s Old Sixth Ward, the city’s first fully protected district, property values have shot up 27 percent in the last year. When given the chance, historic preservation works.” This is great news! It means there should be absolutely no problem getting voluntary neighborhood buy-in for deed restrictions. If it boosts their values, who could be opposed? Why do we need the government to impose it, when it’s obviously in their own self-interest? I argued a similar point in comments about the Carroll Gardens’ downzoning. In the case of Historic Preservation, neighbors could voluntarily form a corporation that owns facade easements on their properties. The corporation would protect the historic structures via property rights, as opposed to by mandate. Outsiders could always donate money to the corporation to buy easements on certain historic properties or make repairs. Did you know that facade easement donations by owners of historic buildings are considered tax-deductible contributions? If a municipality really feels it needs to step in, it could purchase those easements at market price, but it would probably be unnecessary.