David Alpert at Greater Greater Washington has been on top of a story out of Virginia about a Virginia Tea Party group and its bizarre and seemingly anti-free market opposition to a state law forcing local governments to make room for dense growth.The law – which was passed a few years ago by … [Read more...]
Links
1. A shameless story of rent control in NYC. Glad to see that the city is forcing developers to subsidize wealthy Manhattanites' Eat, Pray, Love-like dreams of moving to Paris.2. The travails of getting a bus lane on a busy LA street where "[m]ore people already travel by bus than by car along … [Read more...]
The roots of anti-density sentiment
Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, and Ryan Avent have been discussing the political economy of anti-density regulations, and I have a lot of comments, but I'm not sure I have the time (or, really, the patience) to air all of them. So, we'll see how long this post gets.First of all, I think all this … [Read more...]
Even Jane Jacobs thought Houston doesn’t have zoning
"Houston has no zoning" is a very popular urban planning meme. It has its roots in Houston's lacks one very specific kind of zoning: Euclidean separation of residential, commercial, and industrial uses. Euclidean zoning happens to be the one kind of planning that people easily understand (the whole … [Read more...]
Why I don’t like Inclusionary Zoning
Inclusionary zoning is a hot item among urban planners today, and is often seen as a solution to residential segregation and high housing costs. Exact implementations vary, but the general idea is that developers of multi-unit housing projects are encouraged to set aside a certain percentage of … [Read more...]
This is how gentrification happens: Northwest DC and the height restriction
Lydia DePillis wrote the Washington City Paper's cover story on the case for Congress overturning DC's height limit, which should be very familiar to readers of this blog. It's got some interesting history in it (DC's height limit was apparently influenced by George Washington's personal aesthetics, … [Read more...]
Some Inspiration from Guatemala
Turn the lights down, and the volume up. It's time for some Market Urbanist media, courtesy of some future urbanist leaders who's ideas may one day liberate our cities from yesterday's unenlightened technocrats.Architecture students at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala participated … [Read more...]
Midnight links
1. Cap'n Transit weighs in on the ARC debate, and shows that Chris Christie is more interested in shifting resources to his suburban constituents than to cutting spending. Here's the best part: Editorial board member: What’s the difference between a gas tax hike and a fare hike, besides who it … [Read more...]