Bay Area Cities’ Projected Housing Goals
Despite the resistance to new housing construction from anti-development NIMBYs, most in the bay area (and other high-rent cities across the country) realize the rent is too damn high in [...]
Meditations on DC’s First Meditation Garden
Washington, DC officially opened its first meditation garden earlier this week. This “world class recreation amenity,” in the words of DC Council member Brandon Todd, is meant to be a [...]
Affordable Housing and Public Transit
One of the many advantages of urban density is that it makes public transit more efficient and affordable for municipalities--the more people live near train or bus stations, the more [...]
This Week in Land-Use Regulation, June 21
Research City Observatory on America’s most diverse mixed-income neighborhoods. Using census data on race and income, City Observatory finds that San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles are the cities [...]
This Week in Land-Use Regulation, June 14
New Research Who benefits from local productivity growth? Everyone, find Richard Hornbeck and Enrico Moretti, though to varying degrees. The benefits are greater for homeowners than for renters, mostly because [...]
Welcome to capturedecon.wpengine.com
Welcome to capturedecon.wpengine.com, a new website dedicated to the problems of “regulatory capture” and “rent-seeking”—economist-speak for the pursuit of profits through politics. The capitalist market economy functions well when rival [...]
Intellectual Property Laws: Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
In the rogues’ gallery of regulatory rent-seeking, copyright and patent laws are the wolves in sheep’s clothing. According to the ingenious and highly effective rhetoric of their beneficiaries and supporters, [...]
Excessive Zoning Makes Us Poorer and More Unequal
Zoning ordinances and the like have been endemic in the United States for the better part of a century. These laws have always influenced the location of housing within a [...]
Perspectives on Helping Low-Income Californians Afford Housing
"California has a serious housing shortage. California’s housing costs, consequently, have been rising rapidly for decades. These high housing costs make it difficult for many Californians to find housing that [...]
Why Low-Income Households Become Unstably Housed: Evidence From the Panel Study of Income Dynamics
Because of a severe shortage of affordable housing in the United States, an increasing number of low-income households suffer from housing instability. However, little evidence exists as to why they [...]