Commentary

What City Observatory did this week 1. Pollution and poor neighborhoods. Environmental justice advocates point out–quite correctly–that poor neighborhoods tend to suffer much higher levels of pollution than the typical neighborhood. While this is often due to the callous indifference of public officials to the plight of the poor and people of color (as well as

Why Portland’s proposed inclusionary zoning plan will likely make housing less affordable As we reported in September, Portland Oregon is moving ahead with plans to enact an inclusionary housing requirement. Briefly, the proposal would require all newly constructed apartment buildings with 20 or more units to set aside 20 percent of units for housing affordable

Higher minimum wages result in greater earnings for low wage workers, and no loss of jobs We’re always casting about for effective policies to address poverty. And there’s new evidence that higher minimum wages accomplish just that.  In a new review of the literature and data by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers shows that

Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal came out with another eye-catching headline story in the city versus suburbs battle of the bands:  “Suburbs outstrip cities in population growth, study finds. Big cities may be getting all the attention, but the suburbs are holding their own in the battle for population and young earners.  . . .

It’s been widely noted that poor neighborhoods tend to bear a disportioncate share of the exposure to environmental disamenities of all kinds. In the highway building era of the 1950s and 1960s, states and cities found it cheaper and politically easier to route new roads through poor neighborhoods, not only dislocating the local populace, but

What City Observatory did this week 1. Does Rent Control Work: Evidence from Berlin.  Economists are nearly unanimous about rent control:  they think it doesn’t work. Berlin’s recent adoption of a new rent control scheme in 2015 provides a new test case to see if they’re right.  An early analysis of the Berlin program shows that

Thanks to technological innovations, our lives are in many ways better, faster, and safer: We have better communications, faster, cheaper computing, and more sophisticated drugs and medical technology than ever before. And rightly, the debates about economic development focus on how we fuel the process of innovation. At City Observatory, we think this matters to

Affordable housing is in short supply in many US cities, perhaps nowhere more chronically than in New York City.  Even though New York has more public housing than any other US city, the demand for subsidized units is far greater than supply. As a result, the city regularly conducts lotteries to allocate available units to

Yesterday was, famously, cyber-Monday, the day in which the nation’s consumers took to their web-browsers and started clicking for holiday shopping in earnest. Tech Crunch reports that estimated e-commerce sales will yesterday were predicted at $3.36 billion, coming on top of almost $5 billion in on-line sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. The steady growth