If you’ve been following my work and the work of Smart Growth Seattle over the last few years you’ve definitely noticed that I can get pretty worked up about density and housing supply. I’ve even aggressively challenged members of the Seattle City Council over the years—some who I genuinely like—because they’ve made decisions that, in my view and the view of many others, run counter to the idea that we need more housing. Why do I get so outraged and frustrated when members of the City Council bargain away future housing units to make today’s angry neighbors happy?

Here’s why:

And,

 

And;

 

I’ve taken these from supply and demand genius Mike Scott’s latest blog post on growth and housing. In that post he shares some amazing numbers.

Year-to-date migration into the region is up 24% this year compared to last year. A total of almost 43,000 people moved here between January and May. Even if half as many moved out, that still means there are 21,500 more people lining up at Starbucks every morning.

And not all these people are coming to Seattle. But as we’ve pointed out frequently, there are 120,000 estimated to be arriving in Seattle in the next 20 years. Who know, maybe we’ll even exceed that. Scott says for this year the new people mean that, “we have added demand for 10,000 or more housing units already this year.”

And that’s the point of growth management: growing in dense, transit oriented, and efficient cities rather than scattered widely all over the region. Putting more people in a smaller space is about efficient use of a scarce resource, land. This strategy also is better for our air, water, and reduces our carbon footprint. But that means building more housing.

It’s also good for our economy. We posted recently about a study that found our city is an “innovation cluster,” a place that is attracting lots of jobs in sectors that are creating new opportunities in the economy. And it’s true, innovative companies are creating lots of jobs.

And unemployment is down.

 

According to the real estate blog Seattle Bubble,

In June the Seattle area’s unemployment rate hit its lowest level in almost six years. June’s 4.8 percent unemployment rate was comparable to the 4.7 percent level in August 2008. The national unemployment rate is still a bit higher at 6.1 percent, also roughly on-par with the same period in late 2008.

But are we adding the housing to keep up with all these jobs? According to Moretti we’re not. Here is in a recent Washington Post article on his study:

Moretti’s super-productive cities have been among the the least likely to add new housing since 1990. Decisions to build or restrict new housing are normally the realm of urban planners. But here’s what they look like to an economist: “It’s as if we have some of the most productive metropolitan areas in the world,” Moretti says, “but we don’t allow American workers to flow to these areas to take advantage of that high productivity.”

The Trulia chart doesn’t show Seattle, but Mike Scott recently shared some data with City Council. You might remember this.

Scott points out on his website that, “Demand has outpaced new supply lately. Even though developers opened 7,200 new units in the past 12 months, vacancies fell. That’s because the region added demand for almost 8,200 units in the same period.”

So the reason I get so excited is I hear the experts saying we are an incredibly amazing place to live (think Florence during the Renaissance or Alexandria under the Ptolemies); people of all incomes and walks of life want to be here because they see a future for themselves. But I don’t see us making room for them. Instead, as Moretti points out, “people are marching against Google buses when they should be marching for more housing permits.”

So yes, I get annoyed and outraged when I see our City Council in the process of making it worse, inhibiting our greatness and closing it off to the many new people, of all incomes, who want to be here by making it harder to build more housing. Great cities are open, welcoming places, full of diversity, innovation and opportunity. Will we live up to that potential, or close our gates to change?