Optimal urban land use and zoning
The paper studies the optimal distribution of business and residential land in a circular city. Once the optimum is characterized, we analyze the effect of changes in commuting costs and [...]
An Economic History of Zoning and a Cure for its Exclusionary Effects
I outline the twentieth-century history of American zoning to explain how homeowners came to dominate its content and administration in most jurisdictions. Zoning’s original purpose was to protect homeowners in [...]
Reinvestment in the housing stock: the role of construction costs and the supply side
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 [...]
Housing Supply and Affordability: Do Affordable Housing Mandates Work?
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 [...]
Affordable Housing in Monterrey County: Analyzing the General Plan Update and Applied Development Economics Report
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 [...]
Regulation and the High Cost of Housing in California
This paper analyzes the effect of regulation governing land use and residential construction upon the course of housing prices in California. We explore the linkage between regulation and housing prices [...]
Urban Land Value with Site Density Restriction: An Empirical Study of Beijing, China
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 [...]
New Approaches to Affordable Housing
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 [...]
Why Do We Have Urban Density Controls?
Almost all urban land use controls reduce permitted densities. This article analyzes restrictions on residential densities in a conventional model of density–distance functions. Density controls force development to extend farther [...]
Job Creation and Housing Construction: Constraints on Metropolitan Area Employment Growth
Differences in the supply of housing generate substantial variation in housing prices across the United States. Because housing prices influence migration, the elasticity of housing supply also has an important [...]