Housing

America is Quietly Reinventing Itself

austin-downtown.jpg

The future shape of post-Covid America is beginning to emerge. As demographic trends and surveys indicate, the pandemic has helped accelerate large, epochal changes in the nation’s geography.  read more »

Americans Prefer Single-Family Neighborhoods

Portland_TOD.jpg

Many surveys have found that the vast majority of Americans, including Millennials, prefer or aspire to live in single-family homes. But surveys rarely ask whether they prefer that single-family home to be in a low-density neighborhood or if they would mind living next to a bunch of apartment buildings.  read more »

All Major Metropolitan Area Growth Outside Urban Core: Latest Year

NewJersey_suburbs_2019-12.jpg

The latest City Sector Model analysis of major metropolitan areas shows that dispersion accelerated in 2020 during the period covered by the American community survey 2020 five- year survey (2016 to 2020). The American Community Survey collects a five year sample that covers virtually all geographies in the United States. The new 2016-2020 sample has an “middle year” of 2018.

The City Sector Model  read more »

Serfing the Future?

jeremy-bezanger-sydney-au.jpg

Land ownership has shaped civilizations from their beginnings, with a constant interplay between great powers—the aristocracy, the state, the Church, the emperor—and those below them.  read more »

The Expanding Housing Crisis: Affordable, Attainable, or Impossible?

HUD-rendering.jpg

It's been said that everything starts in California.

Politics, storms, vast amounts of (currently) sequestered, (always) predatory wealth, that “up at the end” accent no one can actually tolerate, etc. – all that is true.

Add to that list of housing cost spikes.  read more »

Tarnishing the Golden State

onerous-regulations-squash-california-dream.jpg

No state advertises its egalitarian bona fides more than California. Governor Gavin Newsom brags that his state is “the envy of the world,” a place that is “not going to abandon our poor people.” In his inauguration speech, he claimed that “unlike the Washington plutocracy, California isn’t satisfied serving a powerful few on one side of the velvet rope. The California Dream is for all.”  read more »

Demographia International Housing Affordability – 2022 Edition Released

2022-edition_demographia-international-housing-affordability.jpg

Demographia International Housing Affordability rates middle-income housing affordability in 92 major housing markets in eight nations: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States).  read more »

The Limits of Libertarianism

for-rent-townhomes.jpg

Over the past half-century, libertarians have played a critical role in the ever-growing war against governmental nonsense. If you want to read the best critiques of wasteful transit policy, sports stadia, government pensions or cancel culture, you can find it among liberty-minded outlets like Reason magazine, the Cato Institute and numerous free-market think tanks.  read more »

Toronto Solidifies Highest Density Ranking in North America

Toronto_Old-City-Hall.jpg

Toronto seems guaranteed to retain its position as the densest urban area in North America (Canada and the United States), based on 2021 Census data recently released by Statistics Canada. The Toronto population centre (urban area) has grown at a rate of 0.8% annually since the 2016 census, while increasing its urban density to 3,088 persons per square kilometer.  read more »

Flyover Country Needs to Keep Our Biggest Edge: Housing Affordability

exburban_housing_Bean_Station_Tennessee.jpg

If there’s one location advantage for the heartland that’s become clear during the last several years, it’s the edge we enjoy over the coasts in housing affordability.  read more »