housing

A January 5, 2020 Wall Street Journal editorial examines Oregon’s housing affordability crisis. The editorial, “The Housing Shortage in Profile: Construction in Oregon dropped to the lowest level since World War II” not only describes the immediate consequences of Oregon’s recently enacted land use regulations but also provides the four decade context that has done so much damage to its middle-class.  read more »

Yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its dwelling approvals data for November, which revealed that dwelling approvals nationally have crashed by 35% in trend terms from the March 2015 peak, driven by a mammoth 52% decline in unit and apartment approvals.  read more »

Chapman University President Emeritus and Professor of Economics Jim Doti gave more than the red meat of prognostication at the recent mid-year update on the economic forecast from the A. Gary Anderson Center at the Argyros School of Business and Economics.  read more »

A new report by Edward Pinto of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which rates the “Ten Best and Worst Metro Areas to Live in for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Jobs,” comes to some apparently surprising conclusions (full report).  read more »

The 15th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey covers 309 metropolitan housing markets (metropolitan areas) in eight countries (Australia, Canada, China [Hong Kong Only], Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States) for the third quarter of 2018. A total of 91 major metropolitan markets (housing markets) --- with 1,000,000+ population --- are included, including three megacities, with more than 10,000,000 residents (New York, London and Los Angeles).  read more »

Maine governor Paul LePage has announced that he will move to Florida after his term expires in 2019. According to The Hill, taxes are driving the Governor away. He said: “I will pay no income tax and the house in Florida’s property taxes are $2,000 less than we were paying in Boothbay,” LePage said. “At my age, why wouldn’t you conserve your resources and spend it on family [rather] than spend it on taxes?”

On May 3, Canada’s Financial Post, the nation’s leading business daily, published my commentary entitled: “Doug Ford was right: Toronto housing won’t be affordable unless we develop the Greenbelt: The PCs could have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to effectively deal with the housing-affordability crisis.”  read more »

It has long been known by economists, but ignored by planners, that urban containment policies create speculators markets. This has been especially evident in Vancouver, the third most unaffordable market in the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, and Toronto, which has experienced record breaking house cost escalation relative to incomes since enacting its “Places to Grow” urban containment policy in the middle 2000s.  read more »

As George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language. So too, America and Australia, not to mention America and Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere.  read more »

Patrik Schumacher, managing partner of Zaha Hadid Architects, and consultant Wendell Cox join Aaron M. Renn on his podcast to speak on their beliefs and what it's like to challenge the urbanist conventional wisdom.

You can find their conversation here.