In Chevy Chase, MD county planners have revised plans for the Chevy Chase Lake Sector from high rise, mixed-use development to low-rise, primarily residential buildings. The trigger to allow for higher-density development will be the arrival of the Purple Line, a proposed light rail that would … [Read more...]
E-books for everyone!
The era of liberals writing e-books about market urbanism is upon us! I knew about Matt Yglesias' upcoming "Kindle Single" The Rent is Too Damn High, but Ryan Avent's The Gated City took me by surprise. Ryan's book has a "print length" of 90 pages, costs $1.99, and despite the name "Kindle Single," … [Read more...]
Covenants as a substitute for Euclidean zoning
Recently, Adam, Stephen, and I did a podcast with Jake at The Voluntary Life about The Voluntary City. The book is a collection of papers on free market solutions to urban challenges, and we will post a link to the podcast here when it's available.In one chapter of the book, Stephen Davies … [Read more...]
The Little-Known History of “Light and Air”
"Light and air" is a very common excuse that people give for why we must have basic zoning laws, and while nowadays a lot of people mean it simply in an aesthetic sense – another way of saying "I like to be able to look out a window and not see another skyscraper 50 feet away" (though for some … [Read more...]
David Alpert calls out Virginia Tea Party group as land use statists
David Alpert at Greater Greater Washington has been on top of a story out of Virginia about a Virginia Tea Party group and its bizarre and seemingly anti-free market opposition to a state law forcing local governments to make room for dense growth.The law – which was passed a few years ago by … [Read more...]
Links
1. A shameless story of rent control in NYC. Glad to see that the city is forcing developers to subsidize wealthy Manhattanites' Eat, Pray, Love-like dreams of moving to Paris.2. The travails of getting a bus lane on a busy LA street where "[m]ore people already travel by bus than by car along … [Read more...]
The roots of anti-density sentiment
Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, and Ryan Avent have been discussing the political economy of anti-density regulations, and I have a lot of comments, but I'm not sure I have the time (or, really, the patience) to air all of them. So, we'll see how long this post gets.First of all, I think all this … [Read more...]
Even Jane Jacobs thought Houston doesn’t have zoning
"Houston has no zoning" is a very popular urban planning meme. It has its roots in Houston's lacks one very specific kind of zoning: Euclidean separation of residential, commercial, and industrial uses. Euclidean zoning happens to be the one kind of planning that people easily understand (the whole … [Read more...]