economics « City Block

Prescriptive urbanism vs. market urbanism

San Francisco skyline w/ crane. CC image from Omar Omar

Tales from two cities:

San Francisco: From Ilan Greenberg in The New Republic – San Francisco’s Gentrification Problem isn’t Gentrification. Greenberg compares the public debate (often writen, and discussed previously here) in San Francisco compared to more the more familiar narrative in other cities.

Here, the debate is

Continue reading Prescriptive urbanism vs. market urbanism – the tension between demand for more housing and the desire to curate great cities

Constraints to affordability

'Truth' – CC image from Kellan

A few items on affordability and development:

Short term vs. long term: Matt Yglesias asks why we’re not building more multi-unit buildings in the face of tremendous demand, and the answer is (broadly speaking) financing:

Karl Smith, citing me, blames anti-density land use rules. Naturally I would like everyone to buy my book and

Continue reading Constraints to affordability

The rent is still too damn high

CC image from Jaybird

A few more thoughts (and links) to discussion from The Rent is Too Damn High.

On rent control: Mike Konzcal (linking to JW Mason) notes how Yglesias’ book is more or less an endorsement of renting, yet rent control and similar sorts of tenant protections are part of what helps give renters

Continue reading The rent is still too damn high

The rent is too damn high

I just finished a nice, quick read of Matt Yglesias’ new e-book The Rent is too Damn High. Following in the same vein as Ryan Avent’s The Gated City, Yglesias documents the perverse economic impacts of development regulations and restrictions on urban areas. Though not as well sourced and without the in-depth discussion of Avent’s

Continue reading The rent is too damn high

The gated Washington region

The Gated City in action: Today’s Washington Post on the inadequacy of the region’s housing supply in meeting demand. In short, Ryan Avent called it. The region is producing jobs, people want to move here, yet it hasn’t been able to produce enough housing to meet that demand. From the Post article:

“If businesses find they

Continue reading The gated Washington region

Norman Foster's aerotropolis

Image via Foster+Partners

Norman Foster is working on a concept for a massive new airport complex for London along the Thames Estuary. I first saw this (via ArchDaily) thanks to a shared Google Reader item (alas, no more) from Neil Flanagan. Yesterday, Planetizen points to an Atlantic piece on the subject, featuring new renderings from Foster

Continue reading Norman Foster’s aerotropolis

Innovative re-use along the low road

Screencap from Bundled, Buried, and Behind Closed Doors

Assorted (and tangentially related) links:

1. Stephen Smith also digs into Eric Colbert (see my previous post here):

I’m not sure I agree with her parenthetical about DC’s “historic fabric” being “so strong already” – in fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of a newer city on the Northeast Corridor

Continue reading Innovative re-use along the low road

Quick links on rising rents, density, and housing supply

CC image from Eric Wilfong

Some quick notes:

1. DC rents continue to rise:

While the vacancy rate for the Metro area is indeed low, it is most pronounced among Class A buildings in the District where just 1.6 percent of apartments are vacant. Class A rents in the city in the third quarter averaged $2,582/month, up

Continue reading Quick links on rising rents, density, and housing supply

eBooks and Cities

Ryan Avent’s recently published Kindle Single on urban economics entitled “The Gated City” finally enticed me to venture into eBooks. I’ve tested out friends’ Kindles, but never felt the urge to spend my cash on one – I still like the feel of a real book and don’t care to carry yet another device around,

Continue reading eBooks and Cities

PATH/Fail: The Story of the World’s Most Expensive Train Station | Observer 2013/05/16
Infrastructure investment goes off the rails.
Check Out the View From the Top of the Washington Monument: DCist 2013/05/15
helmet cams for ironworkers...
Development above the new Fairfax Metro stations: Should preparation begin now? 2013/05/14
Air rights - not a bad idea. However, the depiction here just seems like another suburban pod, isolated from the rest of the land next to the toll road ROW.
Chupacabra Becomes Latest Taco Trucks to Open Restaurant - Young & Hungry 2013/05/13
A nice list of DC-area food trucks that have translated the concept into a brick-and-mortar restaurant. The truck allows for proof of concept, and lower barriers to entry than otherwise required to start a storefront business from scratch.
Red Transit Lanes on Church Have Made Muni Faster and More Reliable | Streetsblog San Francisco 2013/05/13
Lessons for any city planning a streetcar line...
Cluck Zoning Board Meeting Monday | Providence Daily Dose¬es 2013/05/11
Zoning - yikes. Parking - yikes. This is not the kind of outcome we want for cities.
2035 Predictions for Washington Avenue Offer Precision Without Accuracy | streets.mn 2013/05/10
The perils of projections.
War of Addition: In Defense of Residential Pop-Ups - Housing Complex 2013/05/09
A growing city needs space to grow.
Brooklyn's Burden: Fourth Avenue - WSJ.com 2013/05/07
Highlighting the tensions between market incentives and civic ones; where to unleash the market, and where to constrain it via regulation.
Why America’s population density is falling | Felix Salmon 2013/05/04

By Web Design Company

What’s wrong with ‘Metro Brown?’ (1)
- City Block: puts Metro’s recent discussions about moving away from...
Norman Foster’s aerotropolis (5)
- Alex Block: For more on those photos from Boston dealing with their...
Capacity on the Northeast Corridor (2)
- Alex Block: So, FRA is trying to reassure everyone that this is OK:...
- Alon Levy: The FRA rule changes are mostly about cant deficiency and are...
Towards a DC S-Bahn, part 2 (3)
- City Block: are needed to allow for a combination of increased intercity...
Metro’s ‘station of the future’ – why mess with what works? (1)
- Michael: “Metro Brown” works well with the red tiles and...
Disasters: the more things change, the more they stay the same (1)
- Kenny: When I was in New Orleans for a conference a few weeks ago, I...
Managing on-street parking: zoning is not the way (6)
- RTA: Just because a developer provides parking doesn’t mean all...
What would happen without parking requirements? (2)
- benschon: Evidence abounds that zoning mandates to put in parking...
- Streetsblog.net: on the Network today: City Block shares a new report...

@JGluckman great point - we can go (and grow) taller while still feeling horizontal. - 1 day ago
RT @JGluckman: Barcelona and Paris have densities 4 times DC's while still feeling horizontal. - 1 day ago
RT @JGluckman: @HTinWDC suggests Paris and London as models for national capitals that are as much/more known for business and culture. #He… - 1 day ago
RT @JacksonCarnes: Pierre L'Enfant, father of DC urban planning, provided no limit or suggested limit on height. L'Enfant Plan created in 1… - 1 day ago
RT @enf: Graphic illustrations of how much space required parking eats up graphingparking.wordpress.com via @tranlib @urbandata @svrdesign - 1 day ago
Wow. Score one for the common loon. #Birds slate.com/articles/healt… - 1 day ago
RT @BeschlossDC: This is the future Times Square NYC, 1878, altho it almost looks like an intersection in a frontier town: http://t.co/EAjI… - 1 day ago
@GeorgetownMet yeah, that's exactly how I read the initial statistic. Maybe I stare at census data too much. - 2 days ago
@EricFidler were they thinking of Sunday-only back-in angled parking? - 3 days ago
@MarketUrbanism @urbanophile agreed. 'designed to' implies intent; I think the impacts are unintended consequences. Or counterintuitive ones - 3 days ago

City Block

Prescriptive urbanism vs. market urbanism

Constraints to affordability

The rent is still too damn high

The rent is too damn high

More links: iPhones and airports

The gated Washington region

Norman Foster's aerotropolis

Innovative re-use along the low road

Quick links on rising rents, density, and housing supply

eBooks and Cities

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