It turns out, big upzonings work
A new Urban Institute piece asks, what happens to housing production after “big upzonings” in strong housing markets? It turns out, a lot. Top economics journals have long considered case studies of upzoning too trivial to publish–it is obvious that lifting a quota on housing production in locations where homes sell for more than the marginal supply cost of homes will result in new housing production. But earlier peer-reviewed research in planning journals had focused on small upzonings that produce small changes–a corollary to our last blog post about the need for feasibility-oriented large upzonings. This new paper begins to fill the case study gap on large upzonings with by-right permitting in strong markets.
Original links:
- https://www.urban.org/research/publication/how-big-upzonings-affect-housing-supply
- https://x.com/aarmlovi/status/2044487700086923415?s=20
- https://triangleblogblog.com/2023/10/09/yonah-freemark-an-interview-about-land-use-and-zoning/#:~:text=If%20you%E2%80%99re%20only%20changing%20the%20zoning%20to%20a%20small%20degree%2C%20the%20idea%20that%20that%E2%80%99s%20going%20to%20produce%20a%20vast%20change%20in%20your%20housing%20environment%20seems%20unlikely.
- https://www.abundanceandgrowth.org/p/zoned-capacity-is-like-an-artificial