Last summer Bloomberg ran a visual essay on how America uses its land. In case some of you missed it, I thought I would share it here today. They started by breaking the country down into 6 main land uses. Each square represents about 250,000… Read More
The Government of Ontario is currently working on a Housing Supply Action Plan that they hope will address “the barriers getting in the way of new ownership and rental housing.” Through initial consultations, they have already identified 5 key themes (my words below): The approvals/entitlement process… Read More
A bunch of people have asked me lately about what they should do if they want to get smarter on land use planning and on the entitlement process for development projects. It was specific to Toronto, but I don’t think my answer is specific to… Read More
Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox recently published a piece in the Orange County Register called, “California’s housing crisis and the density delusion.” I’m sure you can guess where this is going, even if you don’t follow the work of Joel Kotkin. But if you do,… Read More
I am a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell, and not just because he’s Canadian and went to the University of Toronto (my alma mater), although those facts certainly don’t hurt. I’m late to his podcast, Revisionist History, so in case some of you are as… Read More
About a year ago, Portland enacted “Inclusionary Housing” policy requiring new apartment buildings of 20 units or more to offer up a portion of the units at below market rents. Developers are able to select from a few different options and the rents are calculated according… Read More
Jennifer Keesmaat – the former chief planner of Toronto – recently published an article in Maclean’s called: Toronto’s unaffordable. Why can’t Halifax or Saskatoon take advantage? Her argument: “The hard truth is that many mid-sized cities won’t win the future because they are stuck on… Read More
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 argument, here, is that restrictions on development have made it so that the most prosperous… Read More
When I was in New York a few weeks ago, my friend (a New Yorker) said to me that he couldn’t imagine owning a car (he used to but got rid of it with zero remorse). He then elaborated on all of the nuisances that… Read More
The following image is a geographic representation of Lafayette, Louisiana’s finances. It is from this excellent article by Charles Marohn. What this 3D map shows is the city’s revenues and expenses by land parcel. The green areas are where the city is making a profit… Read More
