Planning

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 »

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 »

I’ve written a lot about how growing up in Detroit was instrumental in my desire to improve and revitalize cities. Watching a city being hollowed out and disgraced in the ‘70s and ‘80s can have that impact.  read more »

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 »

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 »

First I want to thank everyone for reading, sharing and commenting on my recent post on talent, ambition and culture in the Midwest.  read more »

Transit ridership dropped sharply with the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020. The slow rebound in the years that followed has prompted discussion, sometimes in hushed tones, as to whether transit had entered a “death spiral.” That ominous description refers to a situation where a decrease in ridership leads to lower farebox revenue, which in turn leads to service cuts, which further reduces ridership, and so on in a vicious downward cycle.  read more »

For more than 75 years America has been dispersing away from dense urban cores, with nearly all population growth in neighborhoods with a suburban form  read more »

The latest American Community Survey data (2022) indicates that higher density condo living is strongly correlated with lower rates of home ownership than among detached or attached houses. The table below provides US data as well as data for the 56 major metropolitan areas by residential building density.

National Home Ownership by Type of Residential Building: Overall, 65.2% of US households owned their own homes  read more »

For middle- and working-class people across the developed world, home ownership has served as a primary driver of upward mobility. But in a growing number of places, this aspiration is being systematically undermined  read more »