Blog Posts

California YIMBY is advancing its most ambitious legislative agenda yet—one that tackles the three biggest impediments to ending California’s housing shortage: legalizing housing where it’s most needed, streamlining approvals, and reducing costs. If we can pass this package—and fend off…

California cities remain racially segregated, with significant economic disparities between predominantly minority and white neighborhoods. In “The Long-Run Effects of America’s Largest Residential Racial Desegregation Program: Gautreaux,” researchers Eric Chyn, Robert Collinson, and Danielle H. Sandler examined what happened when…

Eight states have recently passed laws allowing smaller homes like duplexes and townhomes, also known as “middle housing,” in areas previously restricted to only large, expensive houses. In “Missing No More: Planners Should Harness Private Developers to Build Middle Housing,”…

Over the past three decades, most new homes in California have been built in or near the wildland-urban interface (WUI). As catastrophic fires in the WUI grow worse with climate change, effective fire-risk reduction strategies are essential.  In Land Use…

Housing costs are a contentious political issue in most American cities. Demands for building more “affordable housing” run up against a variety of politically-powerful stakeholders, who are ambivalent (at best) about neighborhood change; many constituents are fiercely opposed to even…

As America’s population ages, the need to provide safe and efficient mobility from far-flung suburbs and subdivisions grows more acute. Our current transportation systems, land use, and development patterns all but mandate private car ownership and driving – which is…

Over the past eight years, California lawmakers have adopted dozens of reforms designed to make it easier for homeowners to build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), which are sometimes referred to as “granny flats,” in-law units, or casitas.  To help homeowners,…

In a report for the RAND Corporation, Jason M Ward looks at construction costs for permanent supportive housing funded by Los Angeles Measure HHH, a 2016 ballot initiative that required the use of Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) for projects with…

Adding to a growing body of research on the intersections between climate and housing policy, a new report prepared for the Colorado Energy Office looks at the impact of various land use policies on residential growth and greenhouse gas emissions…

While supply-focused housing policy reforms in coastal states usually focus on expanding the stock of multifamily rental housing, cities in the south have pursued a different strategy: making it easier to build and sell small-lot single family homes for ownership. …