Betting on Atlanta - New York Times (rent, mortgage)

[cwlawrence]

Betting on Atlanta - NYTimes.com

[testa50]

I wish Glaeser would update this article, but it's plain to see why he likes Atlanta: the guy is a libertarian-leaning market urbanist guy, and Atlanta is a great example of how these policies tend to lead to a high rate of economic growth and a good quality of life for its citizens.

Glaeser has done lots of research about the impact of zoning on housing prices, and concludes that places with light zoning regulations (such as Atlanta) tend to have far more affordable housing. The land itself, which is usually blamed for high housing costs, is often less important.

Here is a link to a paper he wrote about the "zoning tax", as he calls it:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/...n3/v25n3-7.pdf

Since Atlanta is so spread out, so much is unincorporated, and the city controls such a tiny percentage of developable land, Atlanta's "zoning tax" will likely never be very problematic. But the city definitely needs to make sure that it's easy/cheap to build dense, smart development from a regulatory standpoint, or else we're just going to see more growth go to the burbs. Just because zoning laws encourage you to build dense, smart stuff doesn't mean the same cost of compliance issues don't exist.


He recently wrote a book that was well-reviewed by The Economist. Here is a discussion of his controversial ideas:

Mr Glaeser is likely to raise hackles in three areas. The first is urban poverty in the developing world. He can see the misery of a slum in Kolkata, Lagos or Rio de Janeiro as easily as anyone else, but believes that “there’s a lot to like about urban poverty” because it beats the rural kind. Cities attract the poor with the promise of a better lot than the countryside offers. About three-quarters of Lagos’s people have access to safe drinking water; the Nigerian average is less than 30%. Rural West Bengal’s poverty rate is twice Kolkata’s.

The second is the height of buildings. Mr Glaeser likes them tall—and it’s not just the Manhattanite in him speaking. He likes low-rise neighbourhoods, too, but points out that restrictions on height are also restrictions on the supply of space, which push up the prices of housing and offices. That suits those who own property already, but hurts those who might otherwise move in, and hence perhaps the city as a whole. And tall buildings do not have to be in soulless streets.
So Mr Glaeser wonders, heretically, whether central Paris might have benefited from a few skyscrapers. He certainly believes that his hometown should preserve fewer old buildings. And he thinks that cities in developing countries should build up rather than out. New downtown developments in Mumbai, he says, should rise to at least 40 storeys.

The third, related, area is sprawl, which is promoted, especially in America, by flawed policies nationally and locally. Living out of town may feel green, but it isn’t. Americans live too far apart, drive too much and walk too little. The tax- deductibility of mortgage interest encourages people to buy houses rather than rent flats, buy bigger properties rather than smaller ones and therefore to spread out. Minimum plot sizes keep folk out of, say, Marin County, California. He sees it as an indictment of planning that spreading Houston has “done a better job of providing affordable housing than all of the progressive reformers on America’s East and West coasts.” Mr Glaeser hopes, for the planet’s sake, that China and India choose density over sprawl and public transit over the car. If his own country set a better example, there might be more chance of persuading them.

Urban life: A tale of many cities | The Economist

[testa50]

Guess I'll keep the mentions of Nigeria at a minimum, if this is going to be the result...

[liamnwk]

Originally Posted by testa50

Guess I'll keep the mentions of Nigeria at a minimum, if this is going to be the result...

nothing good comes from there

[MathmanMathman]

These spambots are impressive.

[PedestriAnne]

I think that's the funniest thing I've ever seen on here.