Block that metaphor! There’s nothing “natural” about “naturally occurring affordable housing.” There’s a new term that’s gaining currency in some housing policy circles: “naturally occurring affordable housing.” It even has a catchy acronym: “NOAH.” There’s a recent report from Co-Star (the real estate advisory firm), issued in collaboration with the Urban Land Institute and the […]
The myth of naturally occurring affordable housing Read More »
Neighborhoods are always changing; half of all renters move every two years. There’s a subtle perceptual bias that underlies many of the stories about gentrification and neighborhood change. The canonical journalistic account of gentrification focuses on the observable fact that different people now live in a neighborhood than used to live there at some previous
The constancy of change in neighborhood populations Read More »
What City Observatory did this week 1. Subarus and Suburbans: Flat fee unfairness. Proposals to implement some form of road pricing, which would charge cars based on which roads they use, when, and how far they drive, have raised concerns that pricing may be unfair to low income households. But unexamined in such criticisms is
The Week Observed, October 6, 2017 Read More »
Unemployment rates are down in cities, especially for those with less education One of the trends we’ve been following at City Observatory has been the increasing shift of the driving forces of the nation’s economy to large metro areas, and within these areas to cities. The industries that are flourishing in today’s economy are ones
Metro economies pulling away nationally Read More »
Flat per vehicle registration fees charge lower rates to wealthier households with more road damaging vehicles The prospect of shifting from using a combination of vehicle registration fees, fuel taxes and general revenues to pay for roads, to a system of road pricing, which would charge vehicle users only for the amount of time they
Transportation equity, part 2: the Subaru and the Suburban Read More »
