News and Commentary
Randy Shaw of BeyondChron writes about Dennis Richards, the San Francisco Planning Commissioner, who engaged in real estate speculation, aggressive eviction tactics for his tenants, and other underhanded means of extracting rents from renters in San Francisco. His conduct aside, his heavy involvement in the San Francisco housing market raises serious questions about conflicts of interest and regulatory capture in the local planning process.
New research from the Brookings Institution finds that fewer than 10% of Americans have moved in the past year. While this is attributable to a number of causes, some secular, some not, housing costs in desirable urban areas play a clear role in the decline.
Cathy Reisenwitz has a post on her blog about the difficulty of sympathizing with NIMBY homeowners, specifically in California. While their griping about new developments and property taxes (the lowest in the nation, remarkably), one can appreciate the fact that they made a calculated decision to buy a home and didn’t necessarily have a choice in the fact that the areas they live in would become so popular for many others.
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