Housing

The Real Reason for America's Housing Crisis

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Back in September, I wrote a piece that highlighted a notable but underestimated accomplishment in Chicago’s housing market.  read more »

California's Latest Excuse for Bungling Affordable Housing and Homelessness

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Last week CalMatters – which has become a prime go-to source for coverage of news, and especially politics, in California – published a story that can only be described as infuriating.  read more »

Canadians Moving to Smaller Cities and Rural Areas

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For the last two centuries, one of the most important demographic trends has been the movement of people from rural areas to the cities.  read more »

How Harris Obstructed California Home Construction

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Kamala Harris has a plan to help America’s struggling home buyers by increasing the supply of houses. Her recently released 82-page policy book, “A New Way Forward for the Middle Class,” calls for clearing away the “regulatory burden” and “red tape” that constrains new-home construction.  read more »

The West Faces a New Type of Housing Crisis

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Throughout the West, particularly the Anglosphere, housing costs are ravaging the middle class. Homeownership, long the key to social mobility, is on the decline  read more »

Faster, Better, More: How to House Australia

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This paper, by property expert Ross Elliott, explores the reasons behind our current housing shortages and identifies a range of policy measures which have contributed to – rather than alleviated – the magnitude of the current housing ‘crisis.’  read more »

Austin Builds Apartments and Single-Family Houses, Prices Fall

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Just a quick note on an encouraging article by James Rodriguez of Business Insider. Rodriguez reports a significant reduction in house prices in Austin, Texas, due to building a large number of single-family homes and apartments. I was unable to discern whether the article dealt with the Austin market (the metropolitan area) or the city (which is a housing submarket). Nor could I tell if his insightful comparison to San Francisco was the housing market (metro) or the city submarket.  read more »

The Uglification of Michigan Lake Towns

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In 1873, as a result of the Homestead Act, my great-great-great grandfather, of French-Canadian descent, was awarded 160 acres of land in Leelanau County, Michigan for military service in the Civil War.  read more »

City Suburb Relationships — Where the Midwest is Worst

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Does anyone really think about the relationship a city has to its surrounding metro area? It means a lot more than you might think.  read more »

Rise of Luxury Urbanity as a System: Sydney CBD

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In 1971, after a lifetime researching and explaining the Central Business District, American geographer Raymond Murphy gathered his knowledge together in The Central Business District: A Study in Urban Geography.  read more »