The number of young adults is increasing, not declining, and a larger share of them are living in cities. Yesterday’s New York Times Upshot features a story from Conor Dougherty–”Peak Millennial? Cities Can’t Assume a Continued Boost from the Young.” It questions whether the revival in city living is going to ebb as millennials age, […]
Flood tide–not ebb tide–for young adults in cities Read More »
Does geometry bias our view of how neighborhoods work? Imagine a neighborhood that looks like this: On any given block, there might be a handful of small apartment buildings—three-flats—which are usually clustered near intersections and on major streets. Everything else is modest single-family homes, built on lots the same size as the three-flats. What kind
How urban geometry creates neighborhood identity Read More »
What City Observatory did this week 1. The long journey toward greater equity in transportation. The observance of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday got us thinking about how far we’ve come–and how far we have yet to go–having a truly equitable society. We reviewed two recent studies that address lingering racial disparities in transportation. The first
The Week Observed, January 20, 2017 Read More »
As we pointed out yesterday, there’s some initial visual evidence–from peak hour traffic cameras–suggesting that Louisville’s decision to toll its downtown freeway bridges but leave a parallel four-lane bridge un-tolled has produced a significant diversion of traffic away from the freeway. Perhaps without knowing it, Louisville has embarked on an interesting and useful economic experiment. One
Louisville’s experiment in transportation economics Read More »
Louisville is in the transportation world spotlight just now. It has formally opened two big new freeway bridges across the Ohio River, and also rebuilt its famous (or infamous) “spaghetti junction” interchange in downtown Louisville. A story at Vox excoriated the decision to rebuild the interchange rather than tear out the riverfront freeway as a
Has Louisville figured out how to eliminate traffic congestion? Read More »
You know the feeling: you’re thirsty, you’re primed for a cool, refreshing beverage, and the anticipation has your taste buds tingling. But you pop the cap on the bottle only to find that the beer has turned skunky. It’s very disappointing. Well, we had a small taste of funky beer a couple of week back at
Nothing’s worse than funky beer, except funky beer data Read More »
January 17 is the day we celebrate the life and dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This year is also the first year that we’re observing a national day of racial healing. We thought we’d take a minute to reflect on two recent studies that provide some strong statistical evidence for the unfortunate persistence of
Race & transportation: Still a long way to go Read More »
What City Observatory did this week 1. How diverse are the neighborhoods white people live in? Data from the newly released 5-year American Community Survey tabulations give us an updated picture of the demographics of urban neighborhoods. A new report from the Brookings Insitutiton’s Bill Frey shows that the typical US metropolitan area is continually
The Week Observed, January 13, 2017 Read More »
Requiring inclusionary housing seems free, but could mean less money for schools and local services Last month, the Portland City Council voted 5-0 to adopt a sweeping new inclusionary housing requirement for new apartment buildings. The unanimous decision came with the usual round of self-congratulatory comments about how they were doing something to address the
Who pays the price of inclusionary zoning? Read More »
As Noah Smith observed, economists invariably encounter monumental resistance to the proposition that increasing housing supply will do anything meaningful to address the problem of rising rents–especially because new units are so costly. One of the frustrations that we (and increasingly cost-burdened) renters share is the “temporal mismatch” between supply and demand. Demand can change
Housing supply is catching up to demand Read More »
