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...]
Opening Arlington up to Housing
Arlington County policymakers have issued a call for ideas on improving housing availability and affordability. If you'd like to submit your own ideas, you can do so here through the rest of the day. The ideas that I submitted are below.Arlington County is a national model for transit-oriented … [Read more...]
How to Price Congestion: The Benefits of Dynamic Variable Tolling
Find the full-length report draft here.New York’s political community and the general public have yet to come to terms with reality on congestion pricing. While COVID-19 has suppressed travel demand across the region — deeply for now and to an uncertain extent over the next several years — that … [Read more...]
Get the tuck out of here
Tuck-under duplexes in Palisades Park, NJ (Google Streetview)In two previous posts, I’ve raised questions about the competitiveness of missing middle housing. This post is more petty: I want to challenge the design rigidities that Daniel Parolek promotes in Missing Middle Housing. Although … [Read more...]
In praise of fee simple ownership
In yesterday's post, I showed that missing middle housing, as celebrated in Daniel Parolek’s new book, may be stuck in the middle, too balanced to compete with single family housing on the one hand and multifamily on the other.But what about all the disadvantages that middle housing faces? … [Read more...]
Stuck in the (Missing) Middle
Everybody loves missing middle housing! What’s not to like? It consists of neighborly, often attractive homes that fit in equally well in Rumford, Maine, and Queens, New York. Missing middle housing types have character and personality. They’re often affordable and vintage.Daniel Parolek’s new … [Read more...]
Survey: New Yorkers like Manhattan, the subway and more housing
The Manhattan Institute, a conservative (by New York standards) think tank, recently published a survey of New York residents; a few items are of interest to urbanists. A few items struck me as interesting.One question (p.8) asked "If you could live anywhere, would you live..." in your current … [Read more...]
Mini-review: From Mobility to Accessibility
I just read a 2018 book by a variety of authors (most notably Jonathan Levine, author of Zoned Out), From Mobility to Accessibility: Transforming Urban Transportation and Land Use Planning.The key point of the book is that rather than focusing solely on "mobility", planners should focus on … [Read more...]