Biden's Housing Equity Plan Is More Likely To Waste Resources Than Curtail Zoning
Plus: How credit card companies became the porn police, the failure of the FDA's ban on flavored vaping products, and more...
Zoning
The International Idiocy of the 15-Minute City
Planners and politicians from Saudi Arabia to Scotland want to transform interconnected cities into isolated "urban villages" no one ever needs to leave.
Phoenix Sued After Giving the NFL Power To Censor Signs on Private Property
The city is banning temporary signs that don't have the NFL's approval in a downtown "clean zone."
Historic Preservation Laws Are Stopping This Historic Church From Preserving Itself
Montreal's heritage laws could prevent the financially troubled St. John the Evangelist church from converting its little-used parish hall into a much-needed, revenue-generating asset.
Zoning Police Continue To Find New Ways To Punish the Poor
Multiple factors contribute to housing shortages, but zoning constraints are mostly to blame.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's Housing Plan Avoids Common Mistake of Other YIMBY Reforms
The governor would let developers route around local zoning codes and get housing projects approved directly by state officials.
Help the Working Class by Deregulating Housing Construction
Economist Bryan Caplan explains how cutting back on zoning and other restrictions could create millions of new jobs for workers - on top of other beneficial effects.
Is There a Future for the City of Tomorrow?
The consequences of our obsession with urban dystopias and utopias
'Working Class' Reps Say They Can't Afford D.C. Rents While Earning $174,000 a Year
Progressive politicians are irritated they have to make the same tradeoffs in their living situation as other high-income professionals.
Canada Welcomes the New Year by Banning Foreign Home Ownership
Taxes and bans on foreign home ownership haven't arrested home price increases where they've been tried. There's no reason to think Canada's policy will be more successful.
The Pandemic Was a Disaster for Housing Affordability. 2023 Might Be a Little Better.
Rents and home prices skyrocketed almost everywhere over the past two years. There's some hope new supply will bring costs down in the new year.
New HUD Report Shows Steady Pandemic-Era Increase in Unsheltered Homeless Population
The overall homeless population stayed basically flat from 2020 to 2022. But the number of people sleeping on the streets increased 3.4 percent.
Richmond Wants To Limit New Convenience Stores Because There Was a Shooting at an Old One
The Richmond City Council unanimously approved a resolution to study applying tougher zoning restrictions to new shops as a way of cutting down on crime.
City That Forced Landlords To Evict Tenants Suspected of Crimes Will Pay $1 Million To Settle DOJ Lawsuit
Plus: Elon Musk bans Twitter account that tracks his private jet, Iong permit waits to build new apartment buildings in San Francisco, and more...
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin Seeks to Expand Housing by Curbing Zoning
The move is a step in the right direction. It also highlights how the issue cuts across ideological lines.
Will Eric Adams' 'Get Stuff Built' Plan Actually Get Stuff Built?
The mayor is proposing a long list of helpful, but marginal, reforms that would speed up the city's approval processes for new housing.
Elon Musk Isn't the Only One Fighting Regulators for Turning Offices Into Bedrooms
The rise of remote work has piqued developers' interest in converting empty downtown offices to apartments. Zoning codes and building regulations often make that impossible.
California Bill Would Exempt Church-Sponsored Housing Projects From Hellish Zoning Laws
S.B. 4 would let religious institutions and nonprofit colleges skip the typical environmental review and red tape when building low-income housing on their property.
Ron DeSantis Admin Says in New Lawsuit That the Free Market Won't Produce Affordable Housing
Florida's Department of Economic Opportunity is suing the city of Gainesville to block its legalization of small "missing middle" apartment buildings in single-family neighborhoods.
D.C.'s 'Green New Deal for Housing' Is Doomed Before It Begins
Social housing supporters hope that the city can get city-owned, city-operated housing right with a new office, a more expansive mission, and different branding.
Review: Try and Fail To Build a Virtual City in Sim Nimby
Eventually the player realizes nothing is getting built and quits.
Cities Switch From Requiring Too Many Parking Spaces To Banning Too Many Parking Spaces
Nashville is the latest city to eliminate minimum parking requirements while simultaneously capping how much parking developers are now allowed to build.
Oregon's Newly Legal Magic Mushroom Industry Could Be Strangled by Restrictive Zoning Regulations
Local governments are considering rules that could force "psilocybin service centers" to locate near highways and go through expensive, discretionary permitting processes.
Republicans Need an Actual Plan To Grow the Economy
The biggest beneficiaries of economic growth are poor people. But the deepest case for economic growth is a moral one.
To Fight Human Trafficking, Police in Texas Town Endorse Zoning Restrictions on Massage Parlors
City officials in Nederland, Texas, are kicking around the idea of limiting new massage parlors to industrial areas of town.
NIMBYism and Economic Ignorance
A new study presents compelling evidence that opposition to new housing construction is often caused the mistaken belief that it will increase housing prices rather than reduce them.
Michigan Court Allows Town To Use Drones To Snoop Without Warrants. One Couple Is Suing.
The Institute for Justice argues evidence from warrantless searches can’t be used for zoning enforcement.
What Is a Family? Ask a Zoning Official.
Big cities like New York, Baltimore, and others use strict definitions of family to restrict housing.
My New The Hill Article on How Arlington, VA Battle over "Missing Middle" Housing is a Microcosm of Broader National Struggle Against Exclusionary Zoning
Barack Obama could have been referring to our community, when he said that “[t]he most liberal communities in the country aren’t that liberal when it comes to affordable housing.”
Divided Government Is Good. In 2023, Bipartisanship Would Be Better.
From immigration to drug reform, there is plenty of potential for productive compromise.
D.C. Zoning Officials Prepare a 'Racial Equity Tool' To Guide Zoning Decisions
Local YIMBY advocates express concern that the tool, as written, is overly vague and could be exploited to stop development.
California's Housing Crisis Hasn't Spared the State's College Students
A new law would make it harder for NIMBY neighbors to obstruct new dorms with bogus environmental complaints.
Zoning Laws Make Child Care Unaffordable in Utah
Child care centers should have the same development flexibility as charter schools.
Federal Money Intended for Zoning Reformers Ends Up in NIMBY Clutches
The White House is giving $1.5 billion in INFRA grants to entities that either don't approve new housing or are actively opposed to making it easier to build.
As California Embraces Development, San Francisco Mayor Vetoes Fake Housing Reform Bill
The proposed policy was offensive to property rights and disincentivized construction. The mayor's rejection of it shows the state's increasing interest in allowing more building.
Cardi B Delivers Perceptive, Profanity-Laced Analysis of High Home Prices, Rents
The rapper blamed a lack of "motherfucking inventory" for high home prices and rising rents in low-income neighborhoods. She's not the only one.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' Administration Tells Gainesville To Abandon Zoning Reform
The state's Republican administration comes out against property rights and local control.
Community Fridges Are Facing Vandalism and Regulatory Challenges
The community fridge is a civic model that regulators should encourage, not seek to shut down.
This Renegade California Developer Wants To Build a 2,300-Unit Megaproject in a NIMBY Stronghold
A never-before-used state law might make his plans bulletproof.
What Would It Take for the Democrats To Really Be the Party of Opportunity?
Government should not penalize investment, thwart competition, discourage innovation and work, or obstruct production.
Help Labor by Breaking Down Barriers to Mobility
Labor Day is the right time to remember that we can make workers vastly better off by empowering more of them to vote with their feet.
Christian Britschgi: Zoning Restrictions Worsen the Housing Crisis
Associate Editor Christian Britschgi breaks down how zoning restrictions distort the housing market.
Tiny Homes for Las Vegas Homeless Demolished Over Code Violations
Plus: Trump sues over Mar-a-Lago raid, why people vote to "dismantle democracy," how Ireland ruined its rental market, and more...
