Month: April 2019
-
The Week Observed, April 26, 2019
What City Observatory did this week 1. The high cost of low house prices. We generally take low house prices as a sign that housing is affordable, but the reality isn’t that simple. In the case of cities and urban neighborhoods, low house prices may say a lot more about decline and dysfunction than about…
-
You can’t judge housing affordability without knowing transportation costs
The “commonly accepted” 30 percent standard for judging housing affordability leaves out transportation and location At City Observatory, we’ve long been dissatisfied with commonly used measures of describing housing affordability. There are lots of reasons to believe that a single, fixed percentage of income standard does a poor job of reflecting whether housing is priced…
-
Let’s have an honest discussion about the Rose Quarter freeway widening project
Good decisions result only if state officials are transparent and honest City Observatory has been closely following the proposal to spend $500 million widening the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter in Portland. In the process, we and others have repeatedly uncovered instances of state agency officials misrepresenting facts, suppressing key data, denying the existence…
-
The high cost of low house prices
Low house prices signify problems, not affordability There’s a presumption that low housing prices are a sign of affordability, and a related belief that if housing prices rise, that its “a bad thing” because it must mean that a neighborhood is becoming less affordable. If only it were that simple. To economists, prices are signals…
-
The Week Observed, April 19, 2019
What City Observatory did this week 1. Kevin Bacon and Musical Chairs teach us housing economics. It’s an article of faith among economists that more housing, even higher end housing, will help ease rising rents. But to lay-people, that seems counterintuitive. A new paper from the Upjohn Institute shows that the construction of new housing…
-
Everything that causes gentrification, from A to Z
Gentrification: Here’s your all-purpose list, from artists to zoning, of who and what’s to blame When bad things happen, we look around for someone to blame. And when it comes to gentrification, which is loosely defined as somebody not like you moving into your neighborhood, there’s no shortage of things to blame. We’ve compiled a…
-
Is Uber Unsafe? Is Lyft Lethal? Let’s dig into the data to find out
We have the data: Let’s do a real test of whether Uber and Lyft lead to more crashes Last year, we asked some hard questions about a study from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business that made the provocative claim that the advent of ride-hailing services like Lyft and Uber has actually led…
-
Kevin Bacon & musical chairs: How market rate housing increases affordability
Building more market rate housing sets off a chain reaction supply increase that reaches low income neighborhoods Households moving into new market rate units move out of other, lower cost housing, making it available to other households; the propagation of this effect produces additional housing supply in lower income neighborhoods There’s a lot of resistance…
-
The Week Observed, April 12, 2019
What City Observatory did this week 1. The annual Ben and Jerry’s advanced seminar in transportation economics. If you love ice cream–who doesn’t?–Tuesday was your chance to get a free cone at Ben and Jerry’s and while you were there, pick up a fundamental insight into transportation economics. Around the country, people were lined up…
-
Measuring the civic commons
Using a data driven approach to understanding the health of the public realm We know that the civic commons, everything from parks and libraries, to city centers, the streetscape and other public spaces, play vital roles in enabling and promoting social interaction. Communities invest significant resources in these assets, but often find it difficult to…
-
Time for the annual Ben & Jerry’s seminar in transportation economics
They’ll be lined up around the block because the price is too low–just like every day on urban roads You can learn everything you need to know about transportation economics today, just by helping yourself to a free ice cream cone. One day a year, and today is that day, Ben and Jerry are giving away…
-
How Portland thrives without a port
The myth of a freight dependent economy: debunked by a thriving reality Imagine a port city, whose port went away. It’s economy would surely wither and die, right? That’s what you might expect if you believed decades of civic shibboleths about the Portland having a freight dependent economy. The symbol of is the marine crane. …
-
The Week Observed, April 5, 2019
What City Observatory did this week 1. More Orwell from the Oregon Department of Transportation. When it comes to any public policy decision, but especially one that involves spending $500 million (and likely a good deal more), the public has the right to expect that public employees will be truthful and candid. That hasn’t been…
-
Integration and social interaction: Evidence from Intermarriage
Reducing segregation does seem to result in much more social interaction, as intermarriage patterns demonstrate Change doesn’t happen fast, but it happens more frequently and more quickly when we have integrated communities One of the regular critiques of urban integration is that while we might get people from different backgrounds to live in the same…
-
25 reasons not to widen Portland freeways
Portland is weighing whether to spend half a billion dollars widening a mile-long stretch of the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter near downtown. We’ve dug deeply into this idea at City Observatory, and we’ve published 25 commentaries addressing various aspects of the project. Here’s a synopsis: Traffic congestion Wider freeways don’t reduce congestion. March…
-
More Orwell from the Oregon Department of Transportation
We have always been at war with Eastasia. Concealing and lying about key facts regarding the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway widening process is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and a betrayal of public trust In less than 24 hours, ODOT spokes-people maintained with equal assurance that the CRC was “no where on…