I and many other scholars have argued that minimum parking requirements increase the cost of housing (by taking up land for parking that could be used for housing, and by imposing costs that are passed on to consumers), increase the costs of doing business, and create a variety of other social … [Read more...]
Rent Control Is Bad For Both Landlords And Tenants
When laypeople hear the phrase “rent control”, they typically conjure up one of a few images. Tenants imagine easy street, a world where housing is ridiculously low cost. Maybe they think of rent control in NYC, where they saw the characters from Friends live in large apartments for far below market … [Read more...]
Market Urbanism MUsings: Jan 29, 2016
[this is a pilot for a regular weekly series rounding-up the week's happenings in the world of Market Urbanism. I'd love to get your feedback in the comments or contact us directly. If the response is positive, we'll continue it.]1. Here at Market Urbanism, Scott Beyer wrote about … [Read more...]
Friday link list
Expect a lot more of these...1. Beijing tries to relieve congestion by...building a quarter-million parking new spaces and 125 miles of new downtown streets?! But don't worry – bike sharing!2. Seattle inches closer to a Shoupian on-street parking policy, and Austin ponders charging for … [Read more...]
Livechat invitation and more thinktank responses
As promised, I want to reprint the responses I got from Wendell Cox and Randal O'Toole, but first I wanted to invite everyone to a livechat that's being organized by Tim Lee. Tim used to write for Cato, but now he's pursuing a PhD at MIT and doing freelance writing on tech policy. He organizes … [Read more...]
Marc Scribner at CEI on Seattle’s land use regulation
A few days ago I wrote about inner Seattle's residential density liberalization, and I mentioned that I'd emailed a few land use writers at libertarian think tanks to get their reaction. I'm happy to report that all of them responded, and throughout the week I'll post links to/reprint their … [Read more...]
Seattle’s land use liberalization
It's not often that I find a plan that I can wholeheartedly agree with, but this one from Seattle sounds damn near perfect, at least in terms of marginal change (my emphasis...apologies to Publicola for stealing their content!): 1. Instead of the current generic land-use standards, the new … [Read more...]
A Recipe to Destroy Affordability in Any City.
Austin Contrarian discusses an article that describes how Seattle has become less affordable in recent years. He prescribes a recipe for Austin to become what he calls a "Superstar City" such as New York, Boston, San Francisco, or Seattle. By "Superstar City", I assume he means an ultra-hip place … [Read more...]