Check out my new post at Metropolitan Abundance Project: How “inclusionary” are market-rate rentals? In metropolitan Baltimore, a family of four making $73,000 in 2024 qualifies for 60% AMI affordable housing, where it would pay $1,825 per month for rent, utilities included. A third of new market-rate three-bedroom units in Baltimore are rented at around that level.Baltimore […]
LATEST POSTS
No Solutions, Just Tradeoffs
File under "sad", not under "surprising":We provide evidence of intensified discriminatory behavior by landlords in the rental housing market during the eviction … [Read More...]
Ruminating on Sheetz
As anticipated by the “radical agreement” among the parties and justices at oral argument, the Supreme Court’s recently released decision in Sheetz v. County of El … [Read More...]
The sudden death of the American condo
Condos are disappearing. They persist now mainly in pre-2010 buildings. Among multifamily homes built in the 2020s, just 1 in 25 is owner-occupied. What happened?Frasier's Seattle condo wouldn't be built todayI pulled American Community Survey data … [Read More...]
The urban economics of sprawl
Should YIMBYs support or oppose greenfield growth? Two basic values animate most YIMBYs: housing affordability and urbanism. Sprawl puts those values into tension.https://twitter.com/salimfurth/status/1775556643909935597Let's take as a given that … [Read More...]
YIMBY wins again in Vermont
By Eli Kahn
On March 25, the city council of Burlington, VT, voted to pass a major zoning reform that one observer of Vermont politics (X.com’s pseudonymous @NotaBot) compared to the celebrated overhaul of Minneapolis’s zoning code.Burlington - the largest city in … [Read More...]
And the Oscar for best paper goes to…
By Salim Furth
A friend asked what are the best papers supporting land use liberalization. That's a broad question, but here are some of my answers.AffordabilityThe basic case for zoning reform, across the political spectrum, is that the rent is too damn high. … [Read More...]
Apples to apples housing cost comparisons
I recently ran across an interesting discussion on Twitter about housing costs. Someone praised Chicago's low housing costs, and someone else responded that because Chicago's most troubled neighborhoods are so unusually dangerous and disinvested (compared to … [Read More...]
Poor People Move Too
It is well known that rent control is not particularly effective in controlling rents; cities like New York and San Francisco have rent control and yet are quite expensive. Supporters of rent control, however, often argue that rent control is valuable for a … [Read More...]
Milton’s Zoning Referendum
By Salim Furth
"Wow!" the reporter said, "I knew you from Milton, but I didn't know you were from East Milton. Tell me what it feels like?"Sport sites in East Milton: Sgroiball and sleddingWell, until last week it was not that dramatic. East Milton is an old … [Read More...]
Houston as an Affordability Model
In December, I was asked to testify at a House Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance hearing on government barriers to housing construction and affordability. I provided examples of reforms to land regulations that have facilitated increased housing supply, … [Read More...]
Archives
Top Posts
- The sudden death of the American condo
- Market Affordable
- How Realistic Are the Cities of Fallout?
- The urban economics of sprawl
- No Solutions, Just Tradeoffs
- The Disillusionment of the American Planner, or How We Became Mark Brendanawicz
- Ranking State Land Use Regulations
- What Should I Read to Understand Zoning?
- Only 2 Ways to Fight Gentrification (you're not going to like one of them)
- Unpacking Emergent Tokyo with author Jorge Almazán