Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
California State Senator, Scott Wiener, introduced 3 new bills at the beginning of this year intended to address the statewide housing shortage and continue the pivot from a housing-last agenda to a housing-first agenda.
Here is a summary of the 3 bills:
These three bills (1) mandate denser and taller zoning near transit; (2) create a more data-driven and less political Regional Housing Needs Assessment process (RHNA provides local communities with numerical housing goals) and require communities to address past RHNA shortfalls; and (3) make it easier to build farmworker housing while maintaining strong worker protections.
And here is a bit more information about the first one:
SB 827 creates density and height zoning minimums near transit. Under SB 827, parcels within a half-mile of high-connectivity transit hub — like BART, Muni, Caltrain, and LA Metro stations — will be required to have no density maximums (such as single family home mandates), no parking minimums, and a minimum height limit of between 45 and 85 feet, depending on various factors, such as whether the parcel is on a larger corridor and whether it is immediately adjacent to the station. A local ordinance can increase that height but not go below it. SB 827 allows for many more smaller apartment buildings, described as the “missing middle” between high-rise steel construction and single family homes.
The belief is that transit-oriented sites in the state of California have the potential to accommodate up to 3 million additional housing units.
Fewer barriers to creating new housing. More data. And less politics. You can read more about Wiener’s 2018 housing package over on Medium.
Throughout US history, economic growth has typically spurred an “enormous reallocation of population.” Here is a graph from a recent New York Times article called: What Happened to the American Boomtown?
The Equality of Opportunity Project has a recent paper out called: Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The importance of Exposure to Innovation. Vox also has a summary of the findings, here.
The overall goal of the project is to “use big data to identify new pathways to upward mobility.” And in this particular study, they discover that in America there are many “lost Einsteins” – people who have the ability, but not the opportunity.
Not surprisingly, socioeconomic class, race, and gender play a significant role. Children from high-income families are 10x more likely to become inventors (measured in patents) as compared to children from low-income families.
Geography, place, and environment also matter. Where and how a child grows up has a significant impact on future outcomes. If a child grows up in a city/network that exposes them to other inventors, it increases the likelihood that they too will invent.
Where a child grows up also has an impact on the types of inventions, even if the child move cities as an adult. For example, the study found that if a child grows up in Silicon Valley but moves to Boston as an adult, it is still more likely to author patents related to computers because that’s what it was exposed to as a child.
These associations also impact in a gender-specific way. Women are more likely to invent in a particular technology if they grow up surrounded by similar female inventors. The presence of male inventors has no impact. This makes a powerful case for better gender diversity and strong role models.
If you would like to read the full paper, click here.
California State Senator, Scott Wiener, introduced 3 new bills at the beginning of this year intended to address the statewide housing shortage and continue the pivot from a housing-last agenda to a housing-first agenda.
Here is a summary of the 3 bills:
These three bills (1) mandate denser and taller zoning near transit; (2) create a more data-driven and less political Regional Housing Needs Assessment process (RHNA provides local communities with numerical housing goals) and require communities to address past RHNA shortfalls; and (3) make it easier to build farmworker housing while maintaining strong worker protections.
And here is a bit more information about the first one:
SB 827 creates density and height zoning minimums near transit. Under SB 827, parcels within a half-mile of high-connectivity transit hub — like BART, Muni, Caltrain, and LA Metro stations — will be required to have no density maximums (such as single family home mandates), no parking minimums, and a minimum height limit of between 45 and 85 feet, depending on various factors, such as whether the parcel is on a larger corridor and whether it is immediately adjacent to the station. A local ordinance can increase that height but not go below it. SB 827 allows for many more smaller apartment buildings, described as the “missing middle” between high-rise steel construction and single family homes.
The belief is that transit-oriented sites in the state of California have the potential to accommodate up to 3 million additional housing units.
Fewer barriers to creating new housing. More data. And less politics. You can read more about Wiener’s 2018 housing package over on Medium.
Throughout US history, economic growth has typically spurred an “enormous reallocation of population.” Here is a graph from a recent New York Times article called: What Happened to the American Boomtown?
The Equality of Opportunity Project has a recent paper out called: Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The importance of Exposure to Innovation. Vox also has a summary of the findings, here.
The overall goal of the project is to “use big data to identify new pathways to upward mobility.” And in this particular study, they discover that in America there are many “lost Einsteins” – people who have the ability, but not the opportunity.
Not surprisingly, socioeconomic class, race, and gender play a significant role. Children from high-income families are 10x more likely to become inventors (measured in patents) as compared to children from low-income families.
Geography, place, and environment also matter. Where and how a child grows up has a significant impact on future outcomes. If a child grows up in a city/network that exposes them to other inventors, it increases the likelihood that they too will invent.
Where a child grows up also has an impact on the types of inventions, even if the child move cities as an adult. For example, the study found that if a child grows up in Silicon Valley but moves to Boston as an adult, it is still more likely to author patents related to computers because that’s what it was exposed to as a child.
These associations also impact in a gender-specific way. Women are more likely to invent in a particular technology if they grow up surrounded by similar female inventors. The presence of male inventors has no impact. This makes a powerful case for better gender diversity and strong role models.
If you would like to read the full paper, click here.
The argument, here, is that restrictions on development have made it so that the most prosperous cities are actually the slowest growing cities in terms of population. Here is a chart, from the same article, comparing population growth to average annual pay:
And here is an excerpt:
But these productive places aren’t growing as fast now as economists believe they should — and as they would if they didn’t impose so many obstacles on new development. Since the 1970s, land use restrictions have multiplied in coastal metros, making it harder to build in, say, San Jose, Calif., than in Phoenix. And the politics of development have become tense, too. In the Boston suburbs, the Bay Area, Brooklyn and Washington, people who already live there have balked at new housing for people who don’t.
We often talk about the impact of land use restrictions on supply and overall housing affordability. But here is an argument that it could also be impacting upward mobility.
The argument, here, is that restrictions on development have made it so that the most prosperous cities are actually the slowest growing cities in terms of population. Here is a chart, from the same article, comparing population growth to average annual pay:
And here is an excerpt:
But these productive places aren’t growing as fast now as economists believe they should — and as they would if they didn’t impose so many obstacles on new development. Since the 1970s, land use restrictions have multiplied in coastal metros, making it harder to build in, say, San Jose, Calif., than in Phoenix. And the politics of development have become tense, too. In the Boston suburbs, the Bay Area, Brooklyn and Washington, people who already live there have balked at new housing for people who don’t.
We often talk about the impact of land use restrictions on supply and overall housing affordability. But here is an argument that it could also be impacting upward mobility.
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