A friend asked what are the best papers supporting land use liberalization. That’s a broad question, but here are some of my answers. Affordability The basic case for zoning reform, across the political spectrum, is that the rent is too damn high. Michael Manville, Michael Lens, and Paavo Monkkonen give a combative and accessible review […]
LATEST POSTS
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 … [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 … [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...]
Resources for Reformers: Houston’s minimum lot sizes
By Salim Furth
Updated 1/11/24 to add 3 new papers, Wegmann, Baqai, and Conrad (2023), Dobbels & Tavakalov (2023), and Hamilton (2024). The original post was published 3/14/23.A concerted research effort has brought minimum lot sizes into focus as a key element in … [Read More...]
Hopefully, AI will create a perpetual housing crisis
By Salim Furth
I don't know how successful artificial intelligence will be. But let's agree, for the moment, to consider a reasonably optimistic case where AI delivers significant productivity gains across a broad range of tasks - but not in a way that radically alters our … [Read More...]
The weird D.C. housing grift that’s sending a former FBI agent to jail
By Salim Furth
WASHINGTON – David Paitsel, 42, a former FBI agent, and Brian Bailey, 53, a D.C. real estate developer were sentenced today on bribery and conspiracy charges for their role in schemes involving confidential information held by the D.C. Department of Housing … [Read More...]
Unexpected correlation in Census housing data
By Eli Kahn
Since 1973, the US Census Bureau has administered the American Housing Survey (AHS) in odd-numbered years. Surveyors ask questions about the quality and value of respondents’ housing, and have a battery of questions for the subset of respondents who moved … [Read More...]
An Autopsy of Hsieh & Moretti (2019)?
By Salim Furth
Update 11/20: Chang-Tai Hsieh counters that Greaney's critique ignores general equilibrium effects which make labor scale invariant. That doesn't address the alleged coding errors. We'll see - and perhaps I wrote an autopsy too early. Thanks to Bryan Caplan … [Read More...]
Court: Arlington “Missing Middle” Lawsuit May Proceed to Trial
By Andrew Crouch and Charles GardnerIn March 2023, Arlington County, Virginia passed an amendment to its zoning ordinance which legalized so-called “missing middle” housing typologies in several residential districts, including many which had been zoned … [Read More...]
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Top Posts
- And the Oscar for best paper goes to...
- Ranking State Land Use Regulations
- Only 2 Ways to Fight Gentrification (you're not going to like one of them)
- Subsidizing Suburbia: A forgotten history of how the government created suburbia
- The Limits of the Singapore Housing Model
- Why Do We Hate Developers?
- What Should I Read to Understand Zoning?
- Milton's Zoning Referendum
- Pedestrianized streets usually fail - and that's OK