One of the favored approaches used by the environmental community to put their thumb on the scales is the appeal to the “precautionary principle” which argues that in the absence of clear science, regulators should err on the side of “precaution” by banning whatever environmentalists fear, from chemical compounds to environmental practices. The problem, of [...]
We have just released the 9th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey covering 337 metropolitan markets in Australia, Canada, China (Hong Kong), Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. As usual, the most unaffordable markets are those in with urban containment policy (also called by other names, such as smart growth and [...]
Jeb Kolko, Chief Economist of the real estate website firm, Trulia has provided the only believable sub-county population change data available for 2010 to 2011. In a Trulia website posting republished at newgeography.com (Even After the Housing Bust, Americans Still Love the Suburbs), Kolko shows that household growth was generally greater in less dense areas [...]
Large government financed infrastructure programs are often justified by promoters on the basis of apocalyptic delusions about the intolerable future that would face the public if the projects are not built. A case in point is the Victorville California to Las Vegas high-speed rail proposal, called “Xpress West” (formerly called “Desert Xpress”). Planning documentation alarmingly [...]
Back in 2003, Michael Lewis wrote “Money Ball,” a book about how an Oakland, CA baseball team under head coach Billy Beane used player statistics to hire team members that gave them the greatest chance of a championship season at the lowest cost. So by 2009 it was pretty clear what was coming when President [...]
One of the new environmental trends sweeping local governments is the push to ban plastic grocery bags. The argument is that such bans protect wildlife by preventing the bags from getting into the water. This is just one of a range of claims about plastic bags and the environment, many of which are false or [...]
www.dhi.pdf EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Rating Housing Affordability The 8th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey covers 325 metropolitan markets in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey employs the “Median Multiple” (median house price divided by gross [before tax] annual median household [...]
Anyone familiar with housing affordability in the Washington (DC-VA-MD-WV) metropolitan area is aware that prices have risen strongly relative to incomes in the last decade However, a recent Washington Post commentary by Roger K. Lewis both exaggerates the contribution of higher construction costs and misses the principal factor that has driven up the price of [...]
The recent wave of failed “green” programs, ranging from Solyndra to green jobs programs that fall far short of the promises, should provide those who claim to be worried about crony capitalism, like Occupy Wall Street, with ample opportunity to stand up against this example of corporate-government collusion. Instead, many on the left embrace these [...]
“Soaring” land and house prices “certainly represent the biggest single failure” of smart growth, which has contributed to an increase in prices that is unprecedented in history. While this finding could well have been from our NCPA Policy Report, The Housing Crash and Smart Growth, they were actually from one of the world’s leading urbanologists, [...]