Rental housing in France is both heavily regulated and supported through dedicated public funds. Here’s a high-level overview of what that means (via this 2021 Brookings case study by Arthur Acolin): If you’re interested in rental housing, Brookings also has articles covering the US, Germany,… Read More
Back in the spring, I wrote about a study that was done by the University of Toronto and the University of California, Berkeley that measured “downtown recoveries” using mobile phone data. In other words, it looked at where people’s phones were lingering to try and… Read More
We need more “activity centers”. That is my takeaway from this report by Brookings. Activity centers are exactly what they sound like. But to be more specific, the definition used in the report is based on five categories of assets: community, tourism, consumption, institutional, and… Read More
This is an interesting article from Brookings that talks about the “myths of converting offices into housing.” What I especially like about the article is that it’s nuanced, and it directly addresses many of the myths that currently surround offices. The first one is that… Read More
As a general rule I don’t like to recommend books that I haven’t read yet. And so I’m not here today to recommend Jenny Schuetz’s new book about how to repair America’s crumbling housing policies. Instead, I’m just telling you all about it. You can… Read More
This recent article by Brookings is a good reminder of the all too important link between land use policies/patterns and GHG emissions. Because electric vehicles are cool and all, but they’re still not as efficient as just walking around and/or taking transit. As has been… Read More
The last decade has been pretty good for many cities. Recent 2020 Census data tells us that of the 50 largest cities in the US, 46 of them grew their population over the last 10 years. On average, these 50 cities grew by about 8.5%,… Read More
Last week’s general election in the UK was yet another example of the urban-rural divide that we are all seeing emerge around the world. Taking a look at this chart from the Centre for Towns, it’s pretty clear that the type of community someone lives… Read More
“The concentration of economic growth and prosperity in large metro areas defines the modern global economy, creating both opportunities and challenges in an era in which national political, economic, and societal trends are increasingly influenced by subnational dynamics.” -Brookings Institute The Metropolitan Policy Program at… Read More
According to newly released US census data for 2010-2017 – which Brookings analyzed here – the “back to the city” movement appears to have peaked in 2012. (This is something that we’ve looked at before on the blog.) Here is a graph from Brookings showing the… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 