(Are modular units the key to solving homelessness? / wikipedia)
1. This week at Market Urbanism:
How Houston Regulates Land Use by Nolan Gray
Since there seems to be a lot of confusion about land-use regulation and planning in Houston, here’s a quick explainer on what Houston does regulate, doesn’t regulate, and how private covenants shape the city.
Urban Design and Social Complexity by Sandy Ikeda
A planner can’t build an entire city (or neighborhood even) because she can’t begin to design and construct the necessary diversity and social intricacy that happens spontaneously in a living city. And I don’t think she should even try to because it can irreparably damage, even kill, the living flesh of a city.
Episode 3 of the Market Urbanism podcast with Nolan Gray: Sanford Ikeda on Jane Jacobs
My guest this week is Sanford Ikeda, a professor of economics at SUNY Purchase and a visiting scholar at New York University. He has written extensively on urban economics, policy, and planning.
Parking In A DC Bike Lane Is Extremely Cost-effective For Drivers by Jim Pagels
This extreme lack of parking enforcement jives with my biking experience, during which I routinely have to dangerously swerve, often abruptly, out of the bike lane into car lane traffic due to a car or truck in the bike lane.
2. Where’s Scott?
Scott Beyer spent his 3rd week in Phoenix. His Forbes article this week is about how San Francisco’s Bureaucracy, Unions Stifle Modular Housing For Homeless
[Unions] oppose Kennedy’s lego housing project because the container units wouldn’t get built in America, and because his simplified construction process doesn’t conform to the local building code. This code…is favored by unions because it increases the time and costs involved in construction, meaning more work for them.
3. At the Market Urbanism Facebook Group:
Laura Foote Clark invites us to the YIMBY Party Party in SF, Sept 24th
Garrett Malcolm Petersen interviewed Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns at the Economics Detective podcast
David N Welton is a fan of Sandy Ikeda‘s articles and has some thoughts
Nick Zaiac‘s book review of Fischel‘s Zoning Rules. (All the way down on page 725 of the pdf)
Matt Robare wrote, Why Sprawl Is Not the Only Choice
via Kevin Lynn: A Trump Empire Built on Inside Connections and $885 Million in Tax Breaks
via Malia Kristina: 20 Most Interesting People on Twitter Who Influence Future of Our Cities
via Roland Stephens: Getting People Where the Jobs Are
via Adam Hengels: Jane Jacobs’ Street Smarts
via Tom W Bell: French Polynesia Open to Seasteading Collaboration
via Bjorn Swensen, “Okay this is hilarious. Cheap housing isn’t “affordable”?“
via Corey Smith, “Here is an article that explains the Bay Area‘s housing problem and a choice quote from the Mayor of Brisbane.”
via Nick Zaiac: Zoning and the Economic Geography of Cities
4. Elsewhere
Joe Cortright at City Observatory: Caught in the prisoner’s dilemma of local-only planning
via SFBARF, “This gent is actually on a city housing commission and head of our affordable housing union“
AEI: Major U.S. metro areas have more economic output than many large countries
Airbnb may sue Governor Cuomo and state of New York for denying basic economic rights
5. Stephen Smith‘s tweet of the week:
Details on Oakland’s huge minimum parking requirement reform – eliminated entirely downtown, reduced elsewhere https://t.co/XhHKc3XVp2
— Market Urbanism (@MarketUrbanism) September 21, 2016
