Neighborhood Planning: Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows!
Back in the old days when I worked for the Department of Neighborhoods (yes, it’s true!) as a Neighborhood Development Manager implementing 8 neighborhood plans, I had a very simple rule when it came to working with neighborhoods: never say the word, “no.” My rule was that all things are possible with enough thought, planning, […]
Why is Afforable Housing So Expensive
I used to be, for a short time and one project, a non-profit housing developer. While I did that job it validated everything I had written about development in general: regulation and limits on density make housing more expensive to build. The difference between my world then and a market rate developer is that a […]
Facebook: Toward an Honest Understanding Real Estate Financing, Linkage, and Land Value
Unfortunately there has been a campaign by people calling themselves “urbanists” who are trying to both be in favor of density, not supportive of NIMBYs, and advocates of linkage tax, a scheme that won’t help density and truly is about squashing growth. Dan Bertolet has essentially demolished the foundation of their argument (undertaken more for […]
