This data is from 2019, but I imagine that things would look pretty similar today and that it might even be a little more pronounced. The dataset from the above article looked at how many people have cars in a given area (a darker dot… Read More
All posts tagged “houston”
The disproportionate impact of urban renewal projects on non-white families
Here is an interesting chart from the New York Times explaining the disproportionate impact that highway and urban renewal projects have had on non-white families in the US. The x-axis is the non-white population share in 1950. And the y-axis is the percentage of displaced… Read More
Zoning controls, sprawl, and housing affordability
Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but I continue to feel like there is a groundswell of interest in trying to improve housing supply and overall affordability. The YIMBY movement continues to gain steam. Here are are few excerpts from a recent M. Nolan Gray article where… Read More
Fees on homes
A colleague of mine sent me this Bloomberg article today and said, “Here’s an article about things you already know.” The article cites a recent report by Altus Group that compared government-related fees on new housing across Canada and the U.S. What they discovered will… Read More
How Japan increased its housing supply
River Davis’ recent article in the Wall Street Journal about Tokyo’s generally flat home prices had me, again, wondering about demographics. I mean, aren’t their demographics working in reverse? They have an aging population, low immigration, and a low birthrate. But Tokyo, which represents about… Read More
US cities with the most corporate HQs
The University of Toronto School of Cities recently looked at the changing economic geography of Fortune 500 companies across the US from 1975 to 2017. Here is a diagram of the results taken from CityLab: New York sits at the top with 70 corporate headquarters… Read More
Decline of children in some, but not all, parts of Chicago
The Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University recently published this overview of the “socioeconomic factors affecting demand for housing in Chicago.” Here is the change in population in the City of Chicago from 1950 to 2016: And here is a comparison between Chicago and… Read More
Houston, the global city
Houston doesn’t often get a lot of love in urbanist circles. Though since Ed Glaeser published Triumph of the City and declared Houston’s unfettered sprawl the secret sauce for housing affordability, it is now frequently held up as the shining example of why housing supply… Read More
Is sprawl to blame (at least partially) for the flooding in Houston?
What’s happening in Houston right now is devastating. Ian Bogost of The Atlantic is calling the flood a “disaster of biblical proportions.” Harvey has unloaded 9 trillion gallons of water. It is once again reminding us of the importance of resiliency when it comes to… Read More
International and domestic migration in the US
In response to President Trump’s proposed immigration bill, Brookings recently analyzed census data from earlier this year to demonstrate the importance of immigration for growth within much of the United States. I’d like to share three tables from their analysis. The first two look at… Read More