The Urban Economics Association conference is always creative and constructive. Here are a few notes I wrote down, with apologies to the vast majority of researchers who presented work there which I didn't see.Alice Wang showed the most convincing evidence I've read on net costs of urban … [Read more...]
Toward an Erdmann synthesis
Kevin Erdmann has a good op-ed in the Washington Post today, arguing one of the two core points that have defined his work for the past several years: Fannie and Freddie have set credit standards too high since 2007. (His other core point, that "closed access" superstar cities have made it too hard … [Read more...]
Harris’ housing target: Compared to what?
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has pledged to work towards the construction of 3 million new housing units during her term. Setting aside the methods, what does that mean? And, as she said in a speech last week, would it "end America's housing shortage"?First, it's pretty obvious that Harris … [Read more...]
Are we spiralling into a new dark age? | Analysis and review of Jacobs’ Dark Age Ahead
In Dark Age Ahead, Jacobs proclaims that 'we show signs of rushing headlong into a Dark Age.'Jane Jacobs wasn’t optimistic about the future of civilisation. ‘We show signs of rushing headlong into a Dark Age,’ she declares in Dark Age Ahead, her final book published in 2004. She evidences a … [Read more...]
Lessons from Cities and the Wealth of Nations: a manual for urban policymakers
Jacobs' adopted city of Toronto; source: Unsplash.Continuing this series of book reviews on Jane Jacobs’ works, I now turn to Cities and the Wealth of Nations. But there is already a fantastic piece on the Market Urbanism website, by Matthew Robare, who reviews this book and outlines what Jacobs … [Read more...]
Lessons from Jane Jacobs on The Economy of Cities
Four Cities Suite, by Hiro Yamagata (1983)At the heart of Jane Jacobs’ The Economy of Cities is a simple idea: cities are the basic unit of economic growth. Our prosperity depends on the ability of cities to grow and renew themselves; neither nation nor civilisation can thrive without cities … [Read more...]
Can YIMBY policies cause large price declines?
Kevin Erdmann offers a helpful corrective to the "YIMBY triumphalism" of claiming that large relative rent declines in Austin and Minneapolis are results of YIMBY policies. He's mostly correct, especially about the rhetoric: arguing about housing supply from short term fluctuations is like arguing … [Read more...]
“The traditional model”
On Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen linked to a new paper in Real Estate Economics by Anthony W. Orlando and Christian L. Redfearn. It's a simple, empirical paper using data from 8 metro areas in California and Texas. It finds that net new housing creating appears to become more expensive and more … [Read more...]