Buildable Lands Report: The End of Single Family?
This year’s Buildable Lands Report, a “mid-term check in” for local 10 year Comprehensive Plans, shows some disturbing trends in housing supply. In King County, decision makers, including the Seattle City Council, have restricted the future of both single-family and multifamily segments of the housing market, limiting single-family construction to an extremely small amount of land and […]
More Housing, Fewer Rules, Means More Jobs, More Innovation
A recent study by Dr. Chang-Tai Hsieh and Dr. Enrico Moretti titled Growth in Cities and Countries, found that highly productive cities such as Seattle are limiting not only their own local economic potential, but also the national economic potential, by restricting their housing supply. Hsieh and Moretti call these highly productive cities “innovation clusters,” distinguished […]
Just the Facts: Smart Sustainable Growth is Working
Opponents of high-density housing development often argue that, contrary to traditional economic theory, as the housing supply increases, the price of housing increases rather than decreases. They observe more efficient, higher-capacity buildings replacing older outdated building in their neighborhood, often accompanied by higher per-unit rents. Thus, they conclude that the ultimate goal of developers is […]
