An independent cost-benefit analysis of the New Zealand government’s new legislation to allow three-story multifamily housing by-right, commissioned by the Ministry for the Environment, finds that it could have a major impact on housing affordability, gradually but increasingly delivering “a…
Housing Policy is Climate Policy: How Local Zoning Regulations Hurt the Environment
A new study by UC Berkeley and UC Irvine scholars, commissioned by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) examines the impact of local zoning, permitting, and environmental review on housing development and sprawl —…
Black suburbanization is changing Black neighborhoods
A new working paper by Bartik & Mast (2021) at the W.E. Upjohn Institute finds that patterns of Black households moving to suburbs in the US are key to understanding increased spatial segregation since 1970. Key takeaways: Black households pursued…
Get a Good Job With More Pay, the Landlord Takes It All Away
Cities with job growth attract new residents and develop a more productive workforce, but the workers who move to growing cities will see their wage gains eaten up by the urban housing shortage. A new paper, aptly titled “Location, Location,…
How a Shortage of Housing Supply Reduces Social — and Economic — Mobility
With fewer houses available, American households are moving less, according to a new study by Myers et al. (2020). This has profound consequences for household formation and economic opportunity in the United States. Key takeaways: Americans are moving less. Since…
How Short-Term Rentals Increase Homebuilding
Does the proliferation of short-term rental services like Airbnb reduce the supply of housing and increase displacement, or does it boost the overall housing supply? A new study by Bekkerman et al (2021) finds evidence of some marginal benefit: short-term…
Sprawl Costs the U.S. $1 Trillion Every Year
In a 2015 report for the Victoria Transport Policy Institute and London School of Economics, transportation scholar Todd Litman analyzed the total cost of suburban sprawl in the United States. The topline figure: $1 trillion per year. Key takeaways: “Sprawl…
700 Cities, One Warming Planet
What can city governments do to fight climate change? In an influential 2018 paper, renowned climate scientists Daniel Kammen, Chris Jones, and Stephen Wheeler analyzed the emissions reduction potential of 717 California cities and all 58 counties. What they found:…
VIDEO: Why Housing Policy is Climate Policy
“The climate crisis is getting worse because of the housing crisis” California’s housing shortage and affordability crisis is increasing the pollution that causes climate change, exacerbating the risk of deadly and destructive wildfires while simultaneously forcing more Californians to live…
The White House Weighs In on Zoning Reform
In a new blog post by the Biden administration’s Council of Economic Advisors, CEA Chair Jared Bernstein and his team lay out the case for increasing housing supply, with a bold federal agenda for building on state and local-level zoning…