Richard Rothstein’s “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America” should be required reading for YIMBYs and urbanists of any ideological stripe. Rothstein argues that housing segregation in the US has been the intentional outcome of policy decisions made at every … [Read more...]
People Over Process: Why Democracy Doesn’t Justify Exclusion
Some people accept the idea that restrictive land use policy is just as bad as all the research suggests, but persist in supporting the status quo. They argue that if a community chooses to regulate its built environment, that choice should be respected as having moral weight because it’s the … [Read more...]
A Guide to Urban Development [Guia de Gestão Urbana]
Caos Planejado, in conjunction with Editora BEI/ArqFuturo, recently published A Guide to Urban Development (Guia de Gestão Urbana) by Anthony Ling. The book offers best practices for urban design and although it was written for a Brazilian audience, many of its recommendations have universal … [Read more...]
Only In California: Twisting an Anti-Exclusionary Law To Rationalize Exclusion
As a Market Urbanism reader, you are hopefully fluent in the problems of exclusionary zoning. If you're new to the term, there are some good pieces on the topic here and here. Basically: exclusionary zoning is the use of zoning to price people out of a community. The classic example is minimum … [Read more...]
Does Home-sharing Create Negative Externalities?
A decade or two ago, a traveler who wished to stay in a city temporarily had no alternative to a hotel. Even if the owner of a house or condominium wished to rent out a room for a short period of time, the costs of advertising in a newspaper would have at least partially canceled out the … [Read more...]
Neither Public nor Private: Rethinking the Dichotomy
Cato recently kicked off an essay series they’re calling “What Can’t Private Governance Do?”. The series questions how far we can take private governance in replacing public institutions. The most recent essay by Mark Lutter questions where to draw the line between private and public in territorial … [Read more...]
Urban Density, Mass Transit, and Uber
Over at FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver and Rueben Fischer-Baum claim mass transit is Uber’s best friend. They use data from New York to show that Uber is most frequently used in areas with effective mass transit. They explain that residents in areas with poor access to mass transit are more likely … [Read more...]
Trickle-Down Housing Economics? Laying Reagan’s Ghost to Rest
In a recent 48 Hills post, housing activist Peter Cohen aimed a couple rounds of return fire at SPUR's Gabriel Metcalf. The post comes in response to Mr. Metcalf's own article critiquing progressive housing policy. Mr. Cohen bounces around a bit, but he does repeat some frequently used talking … [Read more...]