reference library

How do the different elements in the standard bundle of property rights, including those of possession and transfer, influence the shape of cities? This paper incorporates insecure property rights into…
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The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated California’s housing crisis by heightening social and economic inequalities, with disparate impact on those unable to perform their jobs. The strong likelihood of a prolonged…
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As regions across the United States are experiencing high and rising house prices, inclusionary zoning is increasing in popularity as a tool to increase the availability of affordable housing for…
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American technological creativity is geographically concentrated in areas that are generally distant from the country’s most persistent pockets of joblessness. Could a more even spatial distribution of innovation reduce American…
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Inclusionary zoning (IZ) has become an increasingly popular tool for providing affordable housing in an economically integrative manner. IZ policies typically require developers to set aside a proportion of units…
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Many local governments are adopting inclusionary zoning (IZ) as a means of producing affordable housing without direct public subsidies. In this paper, we use panel data on IZ in the…
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Measuring how rent-controlled landlords change their housing supply in response to rent increases is difficult, because new construction is automatically exempt. This paper explores evictions as a barometer for landlords’…
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A century ago, captains of industry and their allies in government launched a social experiment in urban America: the abandonment of mass transit in favor of a new personal technology,…
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This paper provides the first, comprehensive evidence on the question of whether the subsidized flood insurance rates are needed to meet the affordability goal of the National Flood Insurance Program….
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An unprecedented surge in U.S. rental demand in the decade since the housing crisis has raised the specter of a rental affordability crisis, the brunt of which is borne by…
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In order to highlight the significance of why this policy change would be detrimental for the California housing market, it is critical to understand the ways that rent control reduces…
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Is there a way for states to usefully recalibrate the local politics of land use while accepting homeowners as they are? This essay argues that state planning mandates could be…
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“A century ago, captains of industry and their allies in government launched a social experiment in urban America: the abandonment of mass transit in favor of a new personal technology,…
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Policymakers must focus on improving the jobs-housing fit—or connecting jobs with affordable housing—which is essential for working families and for the economy. Michela Zonta Expanding the Supply of Affordable Housing…
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Researchers and policy-makers have explored the possibility of restricting the use of housing vouchers to neighborhoods that may positively affect the outcomes of children. Using the framework of a dynamic…
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The experience of Houston reaffirms much of what researchers already know: minimum-lot-size regulations limit urban development, driving up lot sizes and thereby increasing housing prices. By liberalizing these rules, the…
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We develop an urban model that incorporates: (1) heterogeneous sites; (2) fiscal and urban externalities; and (3) an endogenous number of cities, i.e., the extensive margin of urban development. Within-…
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Commentators have long decried the pernicious effects that overly restrictive land use regulations, which stifle new development, have on housing supply and affordability, regional and national economic growth, social mobility,…
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A fatal conflict in the legal definition of family lurks at the intersection of family law and zoning law. Family law doctrines have increasingly embraced the claims of “functional families”—those…
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The politics of urban land use frustrate even the best intentions. A number of cities have made strong political commitments to increasing their local housing supply in the face of…
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What are the local-level impacts of zoning change? I study recent Chicago upzonings that increased allowed densities and reduced parking requirements in a manner exogenous of development plans and neighborhood…
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What are the local-level impacts of zoning change? I study recent Chicago upzonings that increased allowed densities and reduced parking requirements in a manner exogenous of development plans and neighborhood…
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The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is the largest national affordable housing program in the U.S. By 2030, nearly half a million current LIHTC units, or nearly a quarter of…
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Many urban areas use non-cumulative zoning – zoning exclusive to one use (typically manufacturing) that prohibits other uses even if those uses are considered less noxious. Proponents of this zoning…
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Transportation scholars have long known that infrastructure investments both depend upon current land use patterns and spur changes in those patterns. There is a massive literature built around what are…
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We use data on the appraised land value from a data set of more than 16 million appraisals to produce annual estimates of the average price of land used in…
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How does spatial scale affect support for public policy? Does supporting housing citywide but “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) help explain why housing has become increasingly difficult to build…
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Substance use disorders (SUDs) are a major social concern in the United States and other developed countries. There is an extensive economic literature estimating the social costs associated with SUDs…
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Housing affordability is a leading challenge for local policymakers around the world, yet a coherent framework for analysing the various policy options is lacking. This column builds such a framework…
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The Greater Boston Housing Report Card serves as an annual assessment of housing conditions in Greater Boston and what needs to be done to meet the region’s goals for current…
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This Article advances two central claims. First, declining interstate mobility rates create problems for federal macroeconomic policymaking. Low rates of interstate mobility make it harder for the Federal Reserve to…
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First, we argue in Part III.A that binding, comprehensive plans allow legislators to create “contracts” across electoral districts that are otherwise impossible when zoning proceeds through piecemeal lot-by-lot bargaining. In…
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In this brief, we present findings from interviews and focus groups with developers, general contractors, architects and nonprofits working to build both affordable and market-rate housing in San Francisco. The…
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In this Article, we argue that non-cumulative zoning is an idea whose time has passed, if there ever was a convincing case for it at all. The two major justifications…
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Regulatory constraints on housing production have shut millions of Americans out of the country’s most productive labor markets. Historically, Americans have moved to the parts of the country that offered…
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In D.C. and around the country, inclusionary zoning (also sometimes called “inclusionary housing”), is an increasingly popular way to produce affordable housing through the private market. And while these programs…
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If sharing firms prevail in the current fights over the right to operate (and indications suggest they will), it is unlikely that cities and states will ignore them. Instead, as…
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Housing is the most important asset for the vast majority of American households and a key driver of racial disparities in wealth. This paper studies how residential segregation by race…
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With a relatively light regulatory hand on land use, the Texas suburbs are more responsive to market forces than most metro areas. Even so, some of their single-family lots are…
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Hurricane Katrina struck the city of New Orleans in August of 2005, devastating the built environment and displacing nearly one-third of the city’s residents. Despite the considerable literature that exists…
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Between 1973 and 1980, the average sale price of a single-family house in the five-county Los Angeles area rose from $40,700 to $115,000, or by 183%. This increase not only…
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The Portland, OR, region has had a strong urban growth boundary (UGB) since 1979, so observers have focused on the relationship between its UGB and home prices, which rose sharply…
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Approximately 60 percent of U.S. cities with more than 25,000 residents now impose impact fees to fund infrastructure needed to service new housing and other development. In 89 jurisdictions selected…
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An Expert Land Use Panel was used to forecast the land use impacts of a major highway project in the Washington, DC area, the Inter-County Connector. What makes this panel…
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Spring of 2007 will mark the 10th anniversary of the passage of Maryland’s Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Initiative; an effort designed to discourage sprawl development, foster more compact communities,…
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The total cost of regulation amounts to about forty percent of the cost of housing across the various price segments in all of San Diego County…This study indicates that approximately…
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Urban America requires a solution to its affordable housing crisis, and combined with the above data, Census Bureau reports demonstrate that New York City needs a solution more than most…
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Many urban designers today severely criticize traditional, “Euclidean” zoning theory for failing to accord administrative discretion a sufficiently important role. Zoning codes limit land uses and the size and location…
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These examples of three of the best known and oldest growth management systems illustrate that, at both the metropolitan and submetropolitan level, a general effect of such systems can be…
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The late 1960s and early 1970s brought increasing public concern over environmental issues such as rising population growth, resource depletion, and the overall quality of life. The State of Oregon,…
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Regardless of the community’s rationale for limiting growth, the result may be the exclusion of poor households from the community. Studies of growth control support the assertion that growth control…
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The British Town and Country planning system was originally designed to guide rather than restrict development. It has grown into a system which restricts development across the board. This has…
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In short, it is time to discard the tired baggage of conventional zoning and start afresh with a new approach to land-use policy. What is needed are land-use policies that…
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This paper analyzes a simple model of an urban area with growth and uncertainty…Even though investors are risk neutral, uncertainty affects both land rents and land prices in equilibrium because…
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The increasing use of impact fees represents a new trend in local fiscal policy which can have important effects on real estate markets. The ramifications for economic efficiency as well…
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The problems of public housing and related subsidy programs are less the result of poor maintenance and design than a fundamental misunderstanding of the role which housing plays in social…
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Under urban planning in the United States, virtually every major development is subjected to the vagaries of the rezoning process and the uncertainties associated with legislative review by planning boards…
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Urban sprawl has sparked a national debate over land-use policy. At least 19 states have established either state growth-management laws or task forces to protect farmland and open space. Dozens…
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Local and state government officials and environmental activists use the term to create images of disorder, chaos, and irrational decision making about land use by Michigan’s private landowners. These officials…
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More than 100 cities and counties have adopted some form of a growth boundary—a limit on land development beyond a politically designated area—to curb sprawl, protect open space, or encourage…
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Urban-growth boundaries are emerging as one of the most popular growth-management tools in the fight against suburbanization. More than 100 cities and counties have adopted them, and statewide mandates for…
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Urban sprawl has surged to the forefront of local policy debate in Ohio. Concerns about the loss of open space, farm productivity, traffic congestion, and rising public-service costs have led…
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State legislatures across the nation are considering statewide planning reforms to grapple with population and urban growth on the metropolitan fringe. Many of these efforts are driven by theoretical concepts…
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Urban growth has emerged as a touchstone policy issue, particularly on the state and local levels, ushering in an unprecedented new wave of growth-management and growth-control legislation. More than a…
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Rising concerns about traffic congestion, loss of farmland, urban disinvestment, and the costs of public infrastructure have led an increasing number of state and local governments to adopt new policies…
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This article develops an analytic framework for evaluating the effectiveness of regulatory growth management programs. First, the literature review assembles a large body of recent research examining the evolution of…
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The bulk of the evidence marshaled in this paper suggests that zoning, and other land-use controls, are more responsible for high prices where we see them. There is a huge…
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The theory behind both urban-growth boundaries and light rail systems seems sensible at first. Growth boundaries stop development from “sprawling” beyond the limits it sets and forces new development and…
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This report is the second portion of a two-part study that attempts to help fill this void by examining the implementation of growth management techniques in Ventura County, California, a…
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While rational real estate entrepreneurs generally will not redevelop if asset values are below replacement costs, we investigate whether homeowners who have investment and consumption motivations behave similarly. We use…
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California and many urban areas nationwide face a housing affordability crisis. New housing production has chronically failed to meet housing needs, causing housing prices to escalate. Faced with demands to…
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This report analyzes the old proposed General Plan Update and the Economic Impact Analysis (EIA) conducted by Applied Development Economics, Inc. We find that the economic analysis for the county…
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Urban containment and state‐imposed mandatory housing elements in comprehensive land use plans attempt to reshape development patterns. Urban containment programs reign in the outward expansion of urban areas by restricting…
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Since 1950, housing prices have risen regularly by almost two percent per year. Between 1950 and 1970, this increase reflects rising housing quality and construction costs. Since 1970, this increase…
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With an ideology of setting up a socialist market economy with China’s characteristics, land as one of the important factors of production has been in great need of institutional mechanism…
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Housing has long been one of the staples of American society and the United States’ economic prowess has afforded its citizens an abundance of safe and decent housing. The national…
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Numerous commentators have suggested that the spread-out, automobile-dependent urban form (often referred to as “sprawl”) that dominates metropolitan America is at least partially caused by government regulation of land use….
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During the last decade, the state of Maryland was one of the fastest growing states in the United States. In response, the state has implemented an aggressive “smart growth” initiative….
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This study estimates the effects of an urban growth boundary (UGB) on land development decisions in Knox County, TN. With combined effects of increased land development within the city boundary…
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Increasing awareness about the problems brought on by urban sprawl has led to proactive measures to guide future development. Such efforts have largely been grouped under the term, Smart Growth….
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By some projections, the United States will add 100 million people faster than any country on the planet except India. This translates into a net increase of about 40 million…
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This paper contrasts the intergovernmental structures and development goals of state growth programs initiated since 1970 in thirteen states. Many of these state and nonlocal growth management strategies seek to…
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This article presents a partial evaluation of local growth controls as applied in seven mid-size California cities: Camarillo, Livermore, Lodi, Red-lands, San Luis Obispo, Thousand Oaks, and Walnut Creek. Through…
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Many communities across the country face affordable housing challenges. An increasing number of communities are considering inclusionary zoning as a response. Inclusionary zoning programs, which require developers to sell a…
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In 1997, the State of Maryland adopted a bold new approach to growth management based on a novel instrument: priority funding areas (PFAs). PFAs contain growth by directing state spending…
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In what follows, we lay out the case for new, place-conscious strategies. We begin by reviewing the well-documented case that place does indeed matter—that where you grow up affects where…
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Many economists have argued that aspects of the credit market, including low interest rates, can explain the boom. The evidence summarized in this Policy Brief casts doubt on the view…
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In 1971, The Quiet Revolution in Land Use Control inspired numerous scholarly debates about the states’ role in land use regulation. In that book, Fred Bosselman and David Callies recognized…
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The California Coastal Act is a distinctive piece of land use regulation. Its intent is to preserve a unique environmental asset. This paper has used two different data sets to…
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This study presents a summary of stakeholder perspectives on the effectiveness of Maryland’s Priority Funding Areas and barriers to growth within PFAs. It relies upon responses to a telephone survey…
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Generations of scholarship on the political economy of land use have tried to explain a world in which tony suburbs use zoning to keep out development but big cities allow…
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This might be the single most interesting characteristic of Japanese zoning that differentiates it from zoning in North America. Here, cities are essentially the sole masters of their zoning, they…
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Since Brooklyn Heights was designated as New York City’s first landmarked neighborhood in 1965, the Landmarks Preservation Commission has designated 120 historic neighborhoods in the city. This paper develops a…
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A renewed interest has emerged on spatial opportunity structures and their role in shaping housing policy, community development, and equity planning. To this end, many have tried to quantify the…
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This report is the first part of an affordable housing needs assessment for the DC Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. We examined the District of…
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Housing supply in desirable areas is being prevented by regulatory, not natural, barriers. Over the past half century, the United States has gone through a property rights revolution. In the…
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Washington, DC, has gained much from its unique position as the capital of the United States, but it has not fully harnessed its opportunities for equitable and resilient economic growth….
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We study how growth of cities determines the growth of nations. Using a spatial equilibrium model and data on 220 US metropolitan areas from 1964 to 2009, we first estimate…
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America faces a housing affordability crisis in its most economically dynamic cities, including metropolises like New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston where prices are rising faster than…
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To varying degrees, most municipalities regulate urban development with zoning, density restrictions, and parking requirements. Such policies restrict the housing supply and urban density relative to what it could be…
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