A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing: GGW criticism of consulting team retained to write the next iteration of the city's preservation plan (helped me to articulate the 21st century narrative in favor of historic preservation)

The Greater Greater Washington blog has an article, "OP privatizes historic district study, puts it in the hands of preservation cheerleaders," criticizing the city's selection of a pro-preservation consulting firm, which has done some work for the DC Preservation League, as a bag job.  I wonder what GGW thinks about groups like the Washington Area Bicyclists Association getting city grants.

The Economics of Uniqueness: Investing in Historic City Cores and Cultural Heritage Assets for Sustainable Development

Ironically, the article demonstrates the lack of knowledge of the author and his own neoliberal biases, because Place Economics is internationally recognized for its work, one item of which is the World Bank book, The Economics of Uniqueness.

The principal of the firm, Donovan Rypkema, was one of the first people to study the economic value of historic preservation to cities, more than four decades ago.  He moved into preservation consulting from real estate appraisal--it was real estate appraisal that was his entry into the field.

-- Historic Preservation and Affordable Housing: The Missed Connection (2003)
-- "The Economics of Historic Preservation" 
-- Measuring the Economic Impact of Historic Preservation, Advisory Council for Historic Preservation
-- "Culture, Historic Preservation and Economic Development in the 21st Century"

And I don't agree with all of PE's work, such as their triage of properties worth saving in Detroit (Historic Preservation and Rightsizing: Current Practices and Resources Survey).

The new new urban pioneers.  The problem is that post-2000 migrants to the city, especially those of the GGW demographic--younger, under 40, believe that they saved the city. 

This ignores the reality that they are merely the latest generation of "urban pioneers" which have been moving into the city since the 1950s, especially in the period from 1950 to 2000, when household choice trends did not favor urban living ("Blazing a Trail: Urban Pioneer Neighborhoods," HGTV). 

I was one of those migrants in the late 1980s--it took until about 2000 for in-migration to hit critical mass, independent of the change in housing preferences, which were spurred in part by TV shows like Friends and Seinfeld showing positive images of the city.

Note like with institutions acknowledging that we are on lands taken from Native Americans, I am now cool on the term "urban pioneer" because yes, there were residents already. Although out-migration trends were driven by fear of integration it was also about suburban living as a bucolic alternative.  It's better to think of the in-migrants from those decades as people interested in investing in the city, while the out-migrants were engaged in disinvestment.

From "Urban pioneers in the making: Recontextualization and the emergence of the engaged resident in redeveloping communities," Journal of Sociolinguistics:

... The analysis highlights how despite a common thematic focus on resident engagement, personal commentaries and stories of resident activism steer away from the institutional ideal of positive problem solving toward conflict and acts of removal. I identify links between circulated metasemiotic descriptions of the ‘engaged urban resident’ and market-led urban redevelopment and argue that individual reframings and enactments of the institutionally-mandated urban persona can foster socially exclusive and spatially-purified urban neighborhoods.

From the blog entry "70th anniversary of the DC Capitol Hill Restoration Society":

In 2000, I first got involved in urban revitalization through the prism of historic preservation, when a preservationist reached out to me about the H Street neighborhood north of the Capitol Hill Historic District (from F Street NE to Florida Avenue NE).

I'd argue the disinvested historic building is more pleasing than the house next door, although for post-modernism it isn't so bad.

I remain an ardent preservationist today, mostly because the architecture and urban design is so much more humanist and aesthetically pleasing than that of today's post-modernism.  Good books on the subject include Changing Places (out of print) and Cities: Back from the Edge.

It was also a great strategy for neighborhood stabilization during the many decades that center city living was disfavored and populations shrunk.  

Preservation was cheap for cities because the property owners bore the bulk of the cost of compliance--although some argue that put undue hardship on lower income households.  For the most part, cities merely paid for the regulatory function, and brick sidewalks and historically appropriate streetlighting.

It is difficult to separate out the effects of preservation and stabilization versus "gentrification."  I'd argue that gentrification results from architectural attractiveness (mostly, there are plenty examples of tear downs and McMansionization of designate-able properties) and that preservation shouldn't be criticized for its success.  "Inward investment" by preservationists shouldn't be criticized as gentrification but as reinvesting in a city where capital for housing was often unavailable.

Rowhouse neighborhoods have a lot of density as this aerial photo of Capitol Hill by Al Drago shows.

Another criticism is that it has focused on building preservation over intangible heritage ("New York City’s Historic Preservation Movement Is Having a Midlife Crisis," Bloomberg). That by selecting certain areas to preserve, it says others aren't worth preserving, part of the argument of the book History of Urban Places.

In any case, with the rise of property rights sentiments, now at least pre-covid, the trend of city revival and the need for "more housing" amidst constrained land resources, preservation has come into attack by prominent economists and the like ("Idiocracy concerning historic preservation from both Yglesias and Glaeser," 2011), and Binyamin Applebaum in the New York Times ("Historic Preservation Is Hurting Cities," letters, "Preserving Historic Buildings," and "I Want a City, Not a Museum," letters, "Should Historic Buildings Give Way to New Housing?").

=====

A 21st century argument/narrative for the value of historic preservation.  Elsewhere I have argued that historic preservation had a great narrative in the days of the shrinking city--but it hasn't developed a new narrative for opportunities for HP in a growing or rebounding city.

I argue that unlike the demolition arguments of those like GGW, Glaeser, and Yglesias, that it's important to retain place distinctive qualities that make the city unique as opposed to merely a space in which to live.

In terms of theory and practice, I argue that this means respecting the "architectural ensemble of historic districts" (New Buildings Among Old: Historicism and the Search for an Architecture of Our Time"), basically the arguments of University of Notre Dame professor Stephen Semes. 

Along side a surgical insertion of new buildings, more dense, where appropriate.  Like many cities Salt Lake has lots of small apartment buildings in its core.  DC has some of this in older neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and Dupont Circle.  Such buildings are models for what we might call "sensitive densification" within pre-1930 neighborhoods.

Kennedy-Warren building, Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington DC.

DC has examples of large apartment buildings of historically-pleasing design as well.

Where Salt Lake is unusual is that it also has a pattern of duplexes, triplexes, quads, and courtyard housing.  

I argue both types of housing can be admirable additions to historic districts, provided they utilize historic preservation relevant design--which most newly constructed housing does not.

Duplexes and similar types are often but not limited to corner properties and on neighborhood arterials.  SLC's buildings of this type are worthy of a dissertation.

WRT larger apartment buildings, London offers a good typology of historic building design for newly constructed housing, the concept of which is rare in the US, with some exceptions (the works of Robert A.M Stern in NYC,  "Vintage Appeal: Why A-Listers Love New York’s Vintage Residential Buildings," Variety, older rowhouse developments in DC by EYA, BF Saul's expansion of the Kennedy Warren apartment building, etc.).

Interestingly, unlike the people profiled in the Variety article, even though they share the same demographic as the post-2000 urban pioneers and YIMBYs, they have a very different attitude towards place value versus space value.

Typical design of a post-modern apartment building across the US, this building is in Salt Lake.  Developers argue that their market research says people want design like this.  I bet they aren't showing them alternatives.

An addition to the 21st century narrative includes that of protecting intangible heritage and small businesses ("Why Historic Preservation Needs a New Approach," Bloomberg), related in the previous entry on Chinatowns.

When I first started being interested in preservation, I didn't think so much about the intangible.  Of course, it's essential to the definition of place value.

Also see "Preserving Kensington Market’s true ‘neighbourhood character’ means being open to change," Toronto Star:

There are many things that Toronto residents generally need or want, just not on their own street: mid-rise housing, convenience stores, high-rise housing, homeless shelters, low-rise multiplex housing, bars. When one of these things is proposed anywhere in the city, you can rely on hearing one of two contradictory objections.

The first is: we don’t have that kind of thing here, and introducing it would ruin the neighbourhood. The second is: we have plenty of that kind of thing here already, and adding more of it would ruin the neighbourhood.

In either case, the concern invariably revolves around “neighbourhood character,” a quality that always seems to be on the verge of destruction whenever the city evolves. Introduce something uncommon, and it’s ruined. Add more of something common, and it’s also ruined.

Compromises necessary for both preservationists and yimbys.  The shortest way to summarize the 21st century narrative is that preservations have to compromise on the addition of new buildings and density, while YIMBYs have to compromise on design appropriateness--old versus new, and drop their blindness to the negative impacts of mass demolition of historic character.  And the Star article makes this point:

In a way, the kinds of objections that have been making headlines lately serve as an indicator species for a healthy neighbourhood. But letting the objectors get their way all the time can sometimes do more to ruin a neighbourhood’s character than any proposed change.

OTOH,we could call the Glaesers, Applebaums, and Yglesias' promoters of a 21st century urban renewal program, equally heinous to that of the 20th century, because of their arguments that historic neighborhoods don't deserve protection from significant architectural change, and that the value of land is valueless in terms of place considerations.

Uphams Corner, Boston: revitalization "without" gentrification

Transforming a building.  "Now and There" by Faith Ninivaggi, 555 Columbus Avenue, Uphams Corner neighborhood, Boston.

The Boston Globe has an interesting article, "Gentrification is washing over America’s wealthiest cities. Here’s how Uphams Corner held back the tide," positing that the neighborhood is a rare example of urban improvement where people of color have not been displaced. 

-- Uphams Corner Planning Initiatives, City of Boston

It cites the work of Common Good Labs, which using "machine learning" came up with eight distinguishing factors identifying 193 neighborhoods across the country where this was the case.

The study identified a small but significant number of high-poverty census tracts — 193 in metropolitan regions all over the country — that managed to slash poverty rates by 10 percentage points or more between 2000 and 2015 without dislodging the areas’ usually Black and Latino populations.

-- "REDUCING POVERTY WITHOUT COMMUNITY DISPLACEMENT: INDICATORS OF INCLUSIVE PROSPERITY IN U.S. NEIGHBORHOODS," Brookings Institution

The eight factors:

External or metropolitan factors

1. Economic growth in the surrounding metropolitan region; low-income people tend to work in service sectors like retail and hospitality and are especially sensitive to the state of the local economy. 

2. Low homicide rates in the county matter, too — likely because violent crime can be a significant source of anxiety for young people, crimping their academic performance and knocking them off track. 

3.  Low risk of displacement in nearby areas; a high-poverty census tract that abuts one with large numbers of 25- to 34-year-olds earning $100,000 or more is more likely to gentrify.

Internal to the neighborhood factors

4.  Higher rates of home ownership (ownership builds wealth); 

5.  Lower vacancy rates (vacancy is associated with crimes like burglary and arson);

6.  Higher rates of self-employment (entrepreneurship can be a path to mobility and set an example for younger people); 

7.  Increases in housing density in the decade leading up to the study period (more units mean low-income people have a place to live even as higher-income people move into the neighborhood); and 

8.  The presence of community-building organizations (which can put up housing and strengthen social ties)

Discussion.  The article has an interesting discussion about how this came about.  First, disinvestment led to a lot of vacant housing, which made it cheap and attractive to immigrants from Cape Verde.  Immigrants are often a source of revitalization energy in cities when communities are otherwise abandoned.

The summer of 1978 saw the first of several block parties on Monadnock Street in Uphams Corner. Bob Haas, who lived on the street for decades, took a series of photographs that captured the joy of the gatherings. A long-time community activist, Haas played a pivotal role in the revival of the once burned-out neighborhood. He died last year at age 76. Photos by Bob Haas

Second, people with choices did move into the neighborhood some, and unlike the in-migrants described in the movie "Flag Wars" in the Old Towne East neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, they were very much focused on working with the people in the community, not being disconnected "urban pioneers."  

Multi-racial block parties were organized, a community association open to all was created, and eventually, a community development corporation was created which focused on improving properties, and developing new ones, including developing a portfolio of affordable housing which would always be affordable.

Having community organizations that represented community interests and worked on improvements in focused ways is key.

Having heavy rail transit service helps too.  Although its railroad based and inadquately integrated into the intra-city transit network ("A key to a better Boston, hiding in plain sight," Boston Globe).

And that it was adjacent to the Dudley Street neighborhood, which had its own community improvement organization too, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, documented in the book Streets of Hope: The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood.

When neighborhoods become attractive at the scale of the metropolitan area, prices go up.  There is a book on commercial district revitalization, Paths and Pitfalls: On the way to a new vibrancy in Older Retail Districts, about the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia, and he discusses how once the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about the neighborhood as a changing and desirable place, perceptions changed, and people began buying houses that had previously been overlooked, leading to a long term change in the neighborhood and its demographics.

Being disconnected from what I call the regional landscape of attractive neighborhoods.  Key to warding off displacement is not having to compete with the highest earners for housing, which raises prices, and leads to lower cost housing being converted to higher cost housing.

I've discussed this a lot and it is counter to the Live Baltimore resident recruitment program of what they call "one over neighborhoods" meaning that if you can't afford Bolton Hill, live in Reservoir Hill, can't afford Charles Village?, how about Waverly etc.  This does drive neighborhood improvement, but it comes at the cost of rising housing costs and the possibility of displacement.

Economics.  The economics argument is pretty clear.  Since the 1950s, the reason that the poor congregated in cities is because when city land values declined in the face of suburbanization, the impoverished could afford housing, especially as desperate property owners wanted tenants.  (Before the 1950s, most people lived in cities anyway, so they were a mix of all classes.)

Now that residential choice trends include cities (I won't say "favor" but now cities are seen as equal or superior to suburban location by many segments of the housing market), urban locations are seen as desirable.  

In such situations, the poor will be outbid. 

I've written this for years, but more in terms of the middle class.  

-- "Exogenous market forces impact DC's housing market," 2012
-- "Applying the super-gentrification thesis to San Francisco, Santa Monica, and other cities experiencing hyper-demand," 2014
-- "The nature of high value ("strong") residential real estate markets.," 2017
-- "Why "gentrification" is visible now... the Diffusion of Innovations Curve of Everett Rogers," 2018

As urban neighborhoods become more desirable at the scale of the metropolitan residential choice landscape, prices will go up, and people who had been able to afford to live there will be outbid.  In short, the highest wage earners are driving the market in the "best" neighborhoods, not average wage earners. 

Equity.  The counterargument is equity, that all people should be able to live in the city, regardless of income (see the "right to the city" arguments" originally articulated by Henri Lefebvre, and extended by people like David Harvey).

In a market economy for housing, to ensure a place for the economically less well off, that requires public intervention to build, own, and operate housing, as well as other subsidies, such as vouchers for people to pay for private market housing.

 

So creating the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation was key, as was the critical mass of housing purchases by immigrants and others, committing residents to the neighborhood for the long term.

No more housing filtration? (at least in big cities)

Filtration is an old concept in urban planning (also called "ecological succession," "invasion-succession theory," or "concentric zone theory").

I thought from the University of Chicago sociologists in the 1920s, but it actually was first posited in the UK.  

It presumes that people with more money move outward from the core.  As they do so they are replaced by people who on a relative basis, have improved their circumstances compared to lower income deciles.

The Toronto Star reports ("Curse of the renter: In some neighbourhoods, not owning a home now costs more than owning one") that renters there are paying more for housing than housing owners in some parts of the city.  From the article:

Homeowners have long outspent renters in Toronto’s census metropolitan area; a decade ago, their average bills were $1,516 per month versus tenants’ $1,043. That trend is still visible in areas like Toronto’s Little Italy, or a large swath of southwest Brampton.

But over the last decade, the gap has been narrowing. Where owners in all areas spent 45.35 per cent more than tenants in 2011, it fell to 38.84 per cent in 2016, and to 30.28 per cent in 2021.

Statistics Canada has noted a countrywide trend, meanwhile, of renters’ bills climbing faster than homeowners. The average tenant in Canada last year paid 17.6 per cent more than they did in 2016. The average homeowner’s bills increased by 9.5 per cent over that period. 

Toronto is home to some more extreme examples, such as the area between Queen Street and Wright Avenue, from Lansdowne to Sorauren avenues. Here, though owners are still paying several hundred dollars more per month — $2,092 to renters’ $1,790 — renters’ bills are growing much faster. From 2016 to 2021, renters’ average bills went up 48.2 per cent, versus just five per cent for owners.

“It’s quite startling,” Majid said. Generally, the area in and around Parkdale has contended with gentrification, she said, and an increase in housing “financialization” as large companies have come in and purchased older rental apartment blocks as investments. In several cases, those companies have applied for above-guideline rent increases, Majid said, requesting Landlord and Tenant Board permission to charge higher rents for reasons such as major repairs.

If older tenants are pushed out by those costs, she said the rents could surge even higher.

The concept of filtration presumes that older properties remain lower cost.

In today's economy properties are being priced as if they are new, regardless of condition, age, etc.  Maybe it's just about the price per square foot, regardless of condition.

This results in part because an increasing share of the rental housing sector is owned and managed by large firms.

And because demand is greater than supply, especially for comparatively lower cost housing.

An urban planner quoted in the article suggests a greater role for the nonprofit social housing sector as a way to counter constant repricing upward.

-- "Rents are rising everywhere: with continued supply-demand mismatch, shouldn't renter protections be universal? ," 2022

Purple Line Corridor Coalition study: Same Old, Same Old | Gentrification will result from investment in transit infrastructure

This is in response to this Washington Post article, "Purple Line study: Without help, light-rail line will bring gentrification." From the article:

The 16-mile light-rail line that will connect Montgomery and Prince George’s counties — the first direct suburb-to-suburb rail line in the Washington region — is designed to help revitalize older, inner-ring suburbs while providing faster, more reliable mass transit. Some local officials and community leaders have long worried that, without attention, rising land values and rents around the 21 stations will price out business and residents, particularly in lower-income communities in Prince George’s international corridor.

Communities most at risk include Long Branch, Langley Park and Riverdale Park, study leaders said.

 

Poster board from the 2014 meetings.

The study came from the public-private Purple Line Corridor Coalition, a group composed of government officials, community activists, nonprofits, companies and academics. The group organized in 2013 to try to prevent the kind of displacement that has traditionally followed many Metro stations and new transit lines across the country.

 Um, duh.  Transit, like roads, is designed to promote real estate intensification.  It's what you call a "priming effect."  And you want that to happen, since you're spending billions of dollars on it.  

Also see "Op-Ed in Washington Post about preserving affordable housing in the Purple Line corridor (Department of Duh)" from earlier in the year on the same topic.

 

CAF Urbos light rail vehicles will be used for the Purple Line.

This entry summarizes the transit and land use recommendations I've made over the years wrt the Purple Line, but not the CDC-related one, or the need to have a preservation initiative for existing businesses.

-- "Codifying the complementary transit network improvements and planning initiatives recommended in the Purple Line writings," 2022

In 2014, the University of Maryland College Park Public Policy School sponsored a couple of conferences about Purple Line related issues.  

The Purple Line will be a light rail connecting the east and west legs of the Red Line, north leg of the Green and Yellow Lines, and east leg of the Orange Line Metrorail lines, as well as (through transfers) the Penn, Camden, and Brunswick lines of the MARC commuter railroad.

I was kinda surprised about the conference, because they were big on examples from Minneapolis and Denver, which have light rail lines or networks, and not the DC area, which has Metrorail and at the time, almost 40 years of experience with transit oriented development.

When they discussed affordable housing initiatives in those cities I wasn't particularly impressed, both because the projects weren't all that big (especially by comparison to Greater Phoenix, also home to light rail, ("Light rail housing fund spurs 15 projects in metro Phoenix" and "Why you don't see more vacant lots along light-rail route," Arizona Republic) or well funded, not to mention that the DC area doesn't have a particularly powerful philanthropic community--the wealthy tend to focus on projects meaningful to themselves, not others, although these days, surprisingly, Amazon--developing a headquarters in Arlington County ("Crystal City Arlington as Amazon one-half of HQ2," 2018), has committed significant sums to the preservation of affordable housing ("Bowser’s affordable housing push gets a $147M boost from Amazon," "Amazon helps nonprofit purchase Arlington building for affordable housing," Washington Post).

Anyway, my initial response--which was not acted upon--is that if you want to address affordable housing in substantive ways, you need to create a bi-county community development corporation acting in the transit shed of the Purple Line in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties, to buy, hold, preserve, develop and fund affordable housing.

-- Purple line planning in suburban Maryland as an opportunity to integrate place and people focused initiatives into delivery of new transit systems"
--  "Quick follow up to the Purple Line piece about creating a Transportation Renewal District and selling bonds to fund equitable development").  

And it turns out I had written something similar in 2007!!!!!!

-- "It's time to create the "Port Authority" of Montgomery and Prince George's Counties"

That was true in 2014 and 2007, and is still true in 2022.

The biggest thing I learned from my involvement in DC urban revitalization matters was that once the velocity of development starts to change and revs up, it's too late to come up with plans, you need plans beforehand, otherwise you are reactive, not proactive and can never catch up.

The second biggest thing I learned was the need for focused and effective implementation organizations.  CDCs can be such a tool.  

On effective CDCs and economic development organizations see "The Howard and Lincoln Theatres: run them like the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust/Playhouse Square Cleveland model," 2012, and the discussion of "transformational projects action planning," "Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning." 2017.

Granted for the most part DC proper doesn't have great CDCs ("The community development approach and the revitalization of DC's H Street corridor: congruent or oppositional approaches?," 2013) with the exception of Jubilee Housing ("Building stronger community support for public/social housing," 2012) although some of the area housing CDCs, such as in Arlington and Montgomery Counties are reasonably effective.

Rents are rising everywhere: with continued supply-demand mismatch, shouldn't renter protections be universal?

The Washington Post has an interactive map where you can see the average rent increase for every county in the US ("Rents are rising everywhere. See how much prices are up in your area").

The media are replete with reports on housing rent increases ("Lack of new construction and corporate landlords contributing to skyrocketing rent," CBS "60 Minutes," "Rent jumped 17% since last year, hitting a new record," CNN, "Rents skyrocket near MBTA stops, new report finds," Boston Globe, "Rents Are Roaring Back in New York City," New York Times), including one instance of a rent increase from year to year of over 100% (" 'Coral Gables Woman Hit With 106% Rent Increase After Property Sold To New Landlord: ‘I Couldn’t Believe It'," ).

Apparently, New Orleanians pay upwards of 60% of household income on rent, and average rent increases are 20%+ ("As rents soar in New Orleans area, friction between tenants, landlords increases," New Orleans Times-Picayune), while some communities face high rates of eviction ("Maryvale is home to rising rents — and many of Phoenix's top evicting apartment complexes," Arizona Republic).

The Post has an article, "Stop blaming millennials for the housing crisis."  Who ever said that millennials are the cause of housing price appreciation? While others believe they will be permanently priced out of owning a house ("Renters are growing pessimistic they will ever own a home as prices keep rising," CNN).

Forbes argues that the supply problem is partly a function of a rise of single person households, which they surmise will drop as people take on roommates to reduce housing cost ("Rising Home Prices And Apartment Rents Will End Soon: The Mystery Of The Missing Roommate").

With the supply-demand mismatch not likely to be slackened anytime soon, all places need some form of renter protections.

For example, Connecticut has created "fair rent commissions" ("As rents rise, Connecticut legislators vote to mandate fair rent commissions in some towns," Hartford Courant).  From the article:

At a time of rising rents, Connecticut legislators voted late Wednesday night to mandate fair rent commissions for all communities with more than 25,000 residents. Currently, the commissions are voluntary, and 24 municipalities statewide already have them, legislators said. The total under the bill would be expanded to 45 communities. 

Democrats said the mandatory commissions are needed now to help renters around the state at a time when many rents are increasing as the coronavirus pandemic continues. 

The commissions would have the power to investigate complaints about rents, convene public hearings, issue subpoenas to force people to appear, and eventually force landlords to lower rents under certain circumstances. The commissions can be created in each municipality through action by the local city council or board of selectmen by July 1, 2023.

Tampa is proposing a 60-day notice for rent increases, but not a cap ("Tampa City Council proposes 60-day notice requirement for rental increases," NewsChannel8).

But more should be done.  I argue in part that controls in rent are justified because limits on housing production create the stage for extranormal rents.

From the previous entry "City Rising PBS SoCal series on gentrification":

1.  Most legacy cities were built out by the 1930s, but since then the nation's population has increased  by 1.5x.  (And communities built out after WWII tend to be built much less densely compared to earlier periods, further restricting housing supply.)

2.  Residents typically fight new development.   Even when new supply is added, typically it's high priced because it's built at today's prices for land, labor, and materials.  And because even with new additions to supply, demand is still unmet, prices for housing don't go down.

3.  So prices rise.

4.  More people want to live in the city, which further drives demand.  And ultimately, people with more money are always able to outbid people with less money.  This raises prices and in later stages of change, pushes displacement.  (Usually in earlier stages of neighborhood change, buildings taken by new residents tended to be vacant, so displacement wasn't an issue.)

5.  Since supply is constrained, it's reasonable to put in rent controls and tenant protections.  When demand is greater than supply, desperate people can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous property owners.

6.  But in return for rent controls, residents must agree to new construction of housing--market rate, accessory dwelling units, infill apartments, etc.

7.  To preserve affordability, governments need to be proactive in terms of purchasing properties, fostering land trusts, cooperatives, and other land tenure forms which prioritize maintaining affordability rather than price escalation.

8.  Ideally, priority for reuse of government-owned land should be 100% affordability, while balancing revitalization and other goals.

9.  Regardless, master planning should include specific planning for "social housing" and allocate lots within the master plan to social housing providers.  (Helsinki does this.  Vienna does a form of this.)

Elanco HQ project in West Indianapolis: Harbinger of gentrification? | Economic development projects should include simultaneous neighborhood improvements

I came across discussion recently about how the expansion of a medical center in Buffalo is called "gentrification" when it is more about "reproduction of space"--a change in the use of the property, not a classic example of gentrification, or the replacement of low income residents with higher income residents ("Friction in the Fruit Belt," Buffalo News).

Maybe I am being pedantic, but it's not gentrification.  But no question that it is a scalar change in the nature of the place.

Indianapolis Star photo.

Apparently this is an issue in Indianapolis too, where the site of a former GM stamping plant has been empty for a decade, and an animal pharmaceuticals firm, Elanco Health, is going to build a new headquarters on the site, to accommodate the firm's acquisition of Bayer Animal Health Sciences.

Rendering of the new complex.

The Indianapolis Star reports on the groundbreaking, "Elanco breaks ground on $100M Indianapolis headquarters. Some worry about gentrification" (registration required), as well as how some residents express opposition to the project, fearing that it will spur displacement.

As part of the deal, Elanco wanted the area to be better connected to Downtown, and the city is adding bridges and other improvements.  From the article:

The state and city offered Elanco an enticing $170 million incentive package. Of that amount, $64 million is from the city in a special property taxing district called tax increment financing.

... The headquarters will consist of a 220,000-square-foot, six-story office structure and connected innovation and collaboration buildings, Elanco spokesperson Keri McGrath said. Roughly 1,000 employees will work there. 

Not everyone is for it. Jonathan Howe, who has lived near the location his whole life, has led opposition to the project, which he called government-funded gentrification. He lives in a neighborhood called West Indianapolis, which encompasses the new Elanco headquarters. 

“I’ve never received any investment from the city,” Howe said. “The amount of somersaults and backflips the city is doing for Elanco is sickening when you’re a resident here."

... The Elanco headquarters project is pitched as a way to “push downtown west,” Simmons said, “connecting The Valley (neighborhood) with the (Monument) Circle.” “Our community has longed for over a decade and much longer to be connected to downtown,” said Indianapolis councilwoman Kristin Jones, who is running for a state Senate seat. “And this project is going to provide that connectivity. (We) are going to finally have the infrastructure improvements that we have so longed for.”  ...

The alleys in Howe’s neighborhood look like a “war is taking place” he said. So badly damaged they are that residents cannot park behind their own home. The sidewalks outside Howe’s home and recording studio, where he’s lived all his life, are torn up, he said. A park sign knocked over by a car has not been replaced, he said. 

The Valley neighborhood is a historically working-class, lower-income area with a large renters population. The community has, in recent years, become home to a burgeoning Hispanic population. "People who are making $120,000, $150,000 a year at Elanco, they get all the infrastructure, they get all the roads, they get all the perks, they get everything," Howe said. "I get the inconveniences, I get to wait longer for my food, I get to continue to deal with neglect in my infrastructure and my schools and my parks."

While I'm not sure the residents are correct about gentrification, because how can improving a currently empty 45 acre site be gentrification, they have legitimate concerns.

First, they complain that the community is disinvested with significant infrastructure and civic asset needs.  Second, that the Elanco project is going to be funded in part through Tax Increment Financing (TIF), which instead of directing increased property taxes to neighborhood improvements, will take away that potential.

Cities should pair neighborhood improvements with big economic development projects, but usually they don't.  The article does make the point that the TIF district is part of the Downtown intensification plan, and that the Downtown TIF program doesn't provide for neighborhood improvements.

But that is the problem.  I understand why cities focus their economic development energies on downtown and central business districts, because that's where the best return on investment comes.  

At the same time, this creates tensions with residents, who see downtown interests as benefiting disproportionately from improvements, while they believe they get little in return.

I don't always agree with this sentiment, but indirectly it makes a very good point, that cities should ensure that economic development programs also spread benefits to the neighborhoods directly, 

-- "Revisiting community benefits agreements," 2021

rather than through trickle down and/or gentrification, which results in displacement.  (This is an issue in many places, including Dallas.  See "‘We don’t fit the demographic’: a community in Dallas grapples with gentrification," Guardian.)

Absolutely this TIF program for Elanco should be extended to include neighborhood improvements for West Indianapolis and the Valley neighborhood.  If people's property taxes are already going up, with no substantive change, they're being taken advantage of.

And if cities want to build stronger support for such property tax financing systems and subsidies of businesses, they are going to need to better link those projects with visible improvements in the greater community.

It's a no brainer to create a neighborhood improvement plan for West Indianapolis in association with the Elanco project.

Mount Dennis neighborhood, Toronto as an example.  I mentioned this neighborhood recently, which along with the addition of light rail, is getting other more resident-focused improvements.  It's a model of how to do this kind of co-beneficial planning.  

The Mount Dennis neighborhood in Toronto, which is about to be served by the Eglinton light rail line, is supportive of the new infrastructure, in part because there is a simultaneous program for neighborhood improvements ("Sidewalks, bike lanes and shops: why this neglected neighbourhood is saying ‘yes in my backyard’ to LRT development," Toronto Star), which illustrates the importance of the kind of complementary approach suggested here. 

The plans aim to make Mount Dennis a new transit hub with superior connections 

to Downtown Toronto and the Airport

The new planning framework builds on the 2019 community-initiated Mount Dennis Eco-Neighborhood Action Plan.

Note that because it's Toronto, the most populated city in Canada, densities for new development are much higher than in most US communities.

From the article:

The “Picture Mount Dennis” report contains a host of recommendations to improve Mount Dennis. Among them: 

• Encouraging the development of Weston Road, which cuts diagonally through the area, as Mount Dennis’s historic main street. 
• Low and midrise buildings would continue to dominate both sides of Weston Road. The height limit would be eight stories and the goal would be to create a “pedestrian-scaled” main street character. 
• A height peak of 45 stories would apply for buildings immediately adjacent to Mount Dennis station, with those heights gradually decreasing to the north and south of the station and towards Weston Road. Choice Properties wants to build seven towers with about 2,356 units all told, with heights ranging from 20 to 49 storeys. 
• Encourage a “balanced mix of housing types, unit sizes and tenures” in all new developments in order to provide housing opportunities for a variety of income levels and family sizes. For example, new buildings with more than 80 residential units should include more space for families, so 10 per cent of the units should be three-bedroom or larger, 15 per cent of units should be two-bedroom, while an additional 15 per cent should be a combination of two and three-bedrooms. 
• New buildings with 80 or more units should have 10 per cent of units be affordable rental or affordable condos. 
• Connect a new network of bike paths — including one that runs along the length of Weston Road — to planned cycling corridors in Toronto. 
• A “post-secondary satellite campus” should be built in Mount Dennis, that could align with clean tech or an eco-business or some form of green-friendly transportation.
• Attract jobs by promoting and attracting a major business such as a mass timber production facility that provides material for wood frame buildings, a food or social innovation hub, a photography or film museum or a major arts/cultural centre.

Systematic neighborhood stabilization program.  I wrote a series about this:

-- "The need for a "national" neighborhood stabilization program comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts: Part I (Overall)"
-- "To be successful, local neighborhood stabilization programs need a packaged set of robust remedies: Part 2"
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisance programs: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)"
-- "A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)"
-- "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model," 2021 

Amazon, Sound Transit join to build affordable housing in Suburban Seattle: an example of creating affordable housing initiatives in association with transit infrastructure programs

======

Update with regard to Amazon funding projects in the DC area.  WTOP Radio reports on two projects, at the New Carrollton and College Park Metrorail Stations, totaling $82 million for almost 750 units of new affordable housing with low rents guaranteed for 98 years.  This isn't related to the Purple Line so much, but is an example of how such a program for the Purple Line could be created.

-- "$82M in Amazon loans to fund affordable housing at 2 Metro stops"

===

Independent of the introduction of new transit infrastructure, there is an "affordable housing" crisis because the population has increased and housing production hasn't kept up.

It's only accentuated by the introduction of new transit infrastructure, which usually leads to an increase in housing demand in response to better mobility conditions,

This is why many advocates decry transit infrastructure improvements as an element of gentrification, even though the process is much more complicated.

And that it is unfair that when neighborhoods improve because of the addition of transit and the resultant revitalization that instead of benefiting, legacy residents are instead displaced.

Which is why I argue that:

1.  In association with the development of new transit infrastructure there should be a simultaneous complementary plan for transit network improvements, to improve the rider experience, to increase ridership, and to increase the success of the new infrastructure from the outset.

-- "Codifying the complementary transit network improvements and planning initiatives recommended in the Purple Line writings," 2022

2.  Simultaneously, there should be a community development initiative to buy, hold, fund, and develop housing, station improvements, and neighborhood and commercial district improvements, with the aim of preserving housing affordability for existing residents, as well as new housing.  (This doesn't necessarily require the participation of the transit agency as lead developer.)

3.  And another way to target neighborhood improvements at the nexus of new transit stations is to create public improvement districts, to plan for and implement improvements in a concerted way.

-- "Revisiting creating Public Improvement Districts in transit station catchment areas," 2020

WRT #2, for the Suburban Maryland Purple Line light rail project, which will integrate into the Metrorail system, since 2007 I've suggested that a bi-county community development corporation be created to do this.

-- "Creating a transportation development authority in Montgomery and Prince George's County to effectuate placemaking, retail development, and housing programs in association with the Purple Line," 2017

Although it hasn't happened.

Mount Dennis, Toronto.  An article about the Mount Dennis neighborhood in Toronto, which is about to be served by the Eglinton light rail line, describes how the neighborhood is supportive of the new infrastructure, in part because there is a simultaneous program for neighborhood improvements ("Sidewalks, bike lanes and shops: why this neglected neighbourhood is saying ‘yes in my backyard’ to LRT development," Toronto Star), which illustrates the importance of the kind of complementary approach suggested here. 

The plans aim to make Mount Dennis a new transit hub with superior connections 

to Downtown Toronto and the Airport

The new planning framework builds on the 2019 community-initiated Mount Dennis Eco-Neighborhood Action Plan.

Note that because it's Toronto, the most populated city in Canada, densities for new development are much higher than in Suburban Seattle or DC.

From the article:

The “Picture Mount Dennis” report contains a host of recommendations to improve Mount Dennis. Among them: 

• Encouraging the development of Weston Road, which cuts diagonally through the area, as Mount Dennis’s historic main street. 
• Low and midrise buildings would continue to dominate both sides of Weston Road. The height limit would be eight stories and the goal would be to create a “pedestrian-scaled” main street character. 
• A height peak of 45 stories would apply for buildings immediately adjacent to Mount Dennis station, with those heights gradually decreasing to the north and south of the station and towards Weston Road. Choice Properties wants to build seven towers with about 2,356 units all told, with heights ranging from 20 to 49 storeys. 
• Encourage a “balanced mix of housing types, unit sizes and tenures” in all new developments in order to provide housing opportunities for a variety of income levels and family sizes. For example, new buildings with more than 80 residential units should include more space for families, so 10 per cent of the units should be three-bedroom or larger, 15 per cent of units should be two-bedroom, while an additional 15 per cent should be a combination of two and three-bedrooms. 
• New buildings with 80 or more units should have 10 per cent of units be affordable rental or affordable condos. 
• Connect a new network of bike paths — including one that runs along the length of Weston Road — to planned cycling corridors in Toronto. 
• A “post-secondary satellite campus” should be built in Mount Dennis, that could align with clean tech or an eco-business or some form of green-friendly transportation.
• Attract jobs by promoting and attracting a major business such as a mass timber production facility that provides material for wood frame buildings, a food or social innovation hub, a photography or film museum or a major arts/cultural centre.

No substantive plan for affordable housing preservation in the Purple Line corridor.  While advocates have been calling for affordable housing initiatives in the Purple Line corridor ("Op-Ed in Washington Post about preserving affordable housing in the Purple Line corridor (Department of Duh)," 2022), not much has happened in a substantive way, especially given the reality that we know what will happen in terms of increased demand ("New apartments leasing in Chevy Chase Lake in Montgomery County," Washington Post), given the experience with Metrorail and the massive increase in demand for housing near subway stations in DC, Arlington and Montgomery Counties..

Also see:

-- "East County, Montgomery County, Maryland: Council redistricting spurs ideas for revitalization | Part 1 -- Overview," 2021

Seattle.  Which is why an article in the Seattle Times, "Amazon, Sound Transit will build hundreds of apartments in Bellevue, SeaTac in affordable-housing push," sticks out.    From the article:

Sound Transit and Amazon are partnering to build 318 affordable-housing units near light-rail stations in Bellevue and SeaTac. The new apartments, funded through $42.5 million in low-rate loans and grants from Amazon, are slated for the Spring District/120th Station in Bellevue and the Angle Lake Station in SeaTac. 

The units are targeting residents who earn 30-80% area median income. In Seattle, that ranges from $24,300 to $63,300 for a single-earner household, according to the Seattle Housing Authority. Construction is likely to start in 2023 in Angle Lake and 2024 in Bellevue. 

These are the first projects announced since Amazon committed $100 million in June to build 1,200 affordable-housing units on Sound Transit properties. That funding comes from an even larger commitment Amazon made in January 2021 to launch its Housing Equity Fund, a $2 billion initiative to preserve and create 20,000 affordable homes. “

Transportation and housing costs are linked,” said Catherine Buell, director of the Housing Equity Fund. “Our hope is we’re able to not only reduce the amount that families are spending on their housing but also reduce the amount that families are spending on transportation costs.”

This is part of Amazon's Housing Equity Fund initiative, which will invest $2 Billion in affordable housing initiatives in association with its three main HQ operations in Seattle, Arlington County Virginia ("Amazon and Arlington County are providing capital to support a landmark preservation deal to create long-term affordability for over 1,300 apartment homes for a period of 99 years.," press release) and Nashville.

Granted the new initiative is in Suburban Seattle, not the center city, but to see the transit agency come together with a major area corporation, to develop specifically affordable housing is impressive, although even so, in markets where many tens of thousands of units are required, 20,000 units of new affordable housing is a drop in the bucket.

Conclusion.  At the 2014 advocacy meetings for the Purple Line, I said similar kinds of arrangements needed to be created then, to be proactive, based on the DC experience with Metrorail.

-- "Purple line planning in suburban Maryland as an opportunity to integrate place and people focused initiatives into delivery of new transit systems"
-- "Quick follow up to the Purple Line piece about creating a Transportation Renewal District and selling bonds to fund equitable development,"

I thought it was odd that they focused on examples from Denver and Minneapolis--I was told later that it was because those were light rail programs, and the Purple Line is light rail--without acknowledging the richness of examples of the impact of transit on economic development, housing cost, and neighborhood revitalization from the DC area, in association with the development of Metrorail.

Which is why 8 years later, I'm not particularly impressed by the January op-ed in the Washington Post.

Note that Greater Phoenix ("Light rail housing fund spurs 15 projects in metro Phoenix" and "Why you don't see more vacant lots along light-rail route," Arizona Republic), Minneapolis ("Affordable Housing Contributes to Equitable Transit-Oriented Development in Saint Paul’s Corridor of Opportunity," HUD), and Denver ("RTD Wants More Housing Near Stations. It May Sacrifice Unused Parking Spots To Make That Happen," Colorado Public Radio) have created affordable housing initiatives in association with light rail.  

Sheridan Station Apartments in Denver is a 133-unit, 100% affordable building 

constructed at a light rail station. 

At 8 stories, it's bigger than many comparable buildings in the DC area.

The Phoenix program has some heft, while the others don't, but even so it pales compared to Seattle.  Then again, it's more significant than what's going on with the Purple Line.

Note that along the lines of the CDC approach I suggested for Suburban Maryland, in Denver, the Urban Land Conservancy is a nonprofit real estate developer focused on constructing affordable housing developments across Metropolitan Denver.

Community planning, capitalism, and housing/real estate development

 October is National Community Planning Month.

==========

Population growth increases housing demand.  Single family housing zoning makes it difficult to meet that demand.  ArchDaily has an article, "When the American Dream Became the Urban Planning Nightmare," about how most cities are zoned for single family housing, which uses land grossly and how this contributes to significant price appreciation because of the mismatch between housing demand and supply in the face of significant population increases since the time when most cities were built.

In 1930, the US population was 123,000,000.

Today, the US population is about 328,000,000.

Attempts to upzone housing.  The New Yorker also has an article about planning, "The Plight of the Urban Planner," suggesting that the planning profession has an opportunity to "right itself" if it can be successful in addressing and correcting "the housing.problem."

I wish it were so easy.

In developed places, so long as single family housing remains the dominant type, not much can change.  In such places, multiunit housing is being added, but usually only in areas currently zoned commercial and/or in transit stations catchment areas.

But most often, the housing that is being built is not dense enough relative to today's and future demand.  

This 3 story apartment building in Salt Lake has retail on most of the first floor.  It's in a district of single family housing, but in the neighborhood commercial district and is served by transit and is close to downtown.

Relative to housing demand and the need to support the commercial district and transit, the building should be five stories, and more residents would support all these objectives.

But if 1-2 parking spaces needs to be provided for each unit, because few people travel on foot, by bike, or transit, it quickly becomes uneconomic to build more densely as the provision of parking becomes increasingly expensive if it has to be constructed underground.

So housing demand remains greater than supply, and prices continue to rise.

More population reduces automobile dependence, supports transit, walkable neighborhoods, and locally serving commercial districts.  And lack of enough concentrated population (we don't have to call it density) is the primary reason it's difficult to build walkable communities and/or walkable neighborhood serving retail districts as well as successful transit. Without population density not dependent on the car, transit, walkability, and retail can't reach critical mass.

OTOH, since most households don't have a lot of wealth, real estate appreciation is one of the only ways to build the household wealth portfolio, so many residents are fine with constrictions on housing supply.

Even if they argue in favor of affordable and/or access to lower priced housing, so long as it is built somewhere else.

Housing policy as an illustration of economic illiteracy.  I joke that politics is about doing everything possible to ward off the recognition of how economics works--constrained supply raises prices.  Or not charging enough or at all for something (e.g., parking, pollutant discharges, etc.) increases its consumption.

Elected officials understand how more housing provides greater revenues to cities, and at least over many decades, contributes to housing price stabilization.  

But it is the rare politician that is willing to explain this to residents fighting change, not because they are "against housing" but because they want to "preserve neighborhood character."

Is this the fault of planners?  It's not fair to blame planners for this.  Planners are caught in what in social psychology is called boundary spanning, having to satisfy different interests (developers, public finance, elected officials, residents) usually with conflicting goals and objectives.

1300 Block of Rhode Island Avenue, Washington, DC.

Mixed housing types.  Before 1940, it wasn't uncommon for neighborhoods to be a mix of housing types, with small and medium apartment buildings alongside a range of sizes of single family housing, including carriage or alley housing, duplexes, and courtyard housing.

It seems that changing the zoning to allow for a greater diversity of housing types would be a simple change.  That's what Minneapolis has done, and Seattle has done this in some areas too.  And the State of Oregon.

Incremental change won't change much.  But change incrementally will take decades to have much impact, and by increasing the value of the land today, because of the increase in development rights, won't miraculously lead to less expensive housing.

215 Boylston Avenue East, Seattle. 17 studios were built on this 2,700 s.f. lot.

In Seattle what's happening is different, the demolition of single family houses and the insertion of smaller apartment/condominum buildings, usually with modern architectural styles at odds with the architectural designs that were dominant when the neighborhood was first built.  

It's a much more significant change, a rezoning from single family housing to multiunit housing.

Building more intensely by transit.  The New Yorker article starts by discussing a different policy, the attempt in California to make it easier to build more densely in areas served by transit.  The initiative failed, as a coalition came together of landed residents who fought wanting to keep neighborhoods unchanged and "anti-gentrifiers" who saw the initiative as "rewarding avaricious developers" rather than resulting in the production of more housing.

Real estate developers: it's their fault, right?  It goes on to discuss a range of books about planning and the role of real estate development in shaping cities and driving what urban planning does.

While the author mentions the classic books Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Power Broker, rather than mention Urban Fortunes: Towards a Political Economy of Place, which outlines what the authors call the Growth Machine and how city political and economic elites are united on a pro-[real estate] intensification agenda because city revenues are dependent on property taxes, it cites the more recent Capital City by Sam Stein.  From the article:

But Stein’s special aim is not just to show how real estate controls everything, which, if you were halfway paying attention during the financial crisis—rooted as it was in the predations of housing markets—you already know. His principal point is that the power of the real-estate state flows from the dynamic between development and the profession of city planning. Planners are usually thought of as bureaucrats, though sometimes they take on the aspect of legend: Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who tamed rebellious Paris into wide avenues that couldn’t be barricaded; imperious Robert Moses, who pummelled New York with expressways. Stein’s planners are at once lesser and greater than these. Though they may look like mousy cubicle denizens—determining the right sort of window treatment for a historic house, or calculating the Area Median Income for a smattering of affordable units in a luxury building—they’re more influential than they appear. Planners, he writes, “are tasked with the contradictory goals of inflating real estate values while safeguarding residents’ best interests.” The position is an inherently uncomfortable one. But planning holds out the promise that the future is, at least in part, knowable. Explicit in Stein’s narrative is the idea that a different, more democratic kind of planning might lead us to more democratic kinds of cities.

I haven't yet read that book, but I doubt it is as dispassionate about this dialectic around local public finance and how it exists within capitalism.  

The original Growth Machine journal article, which was expanded into the book, is here:

-- "City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place," American Journal of Sociology, 1976

Public finance and property tax revenues.  Municipal finance is dependent on a successful real estate market (and as blogreader EE says, "developers are like sharks, who if they stop moving, die; Developers have to keep building, just like sharks keep swimming").

-- "The real lesson from Flint, Michigan is about municipal finance," 2016

In the US form of capitalism, the "state" plays a minimal role in housing production.  Sure planning is important.  But in the US form of capitalism, the state is not the primary constructor of housing it is dependent on the private sector.  Although the state aids the production of lower cost housing through inputs such as free or low cost land, density bonuses, and financing.

In a profit focused system, real estate developers will build housing for more expensive segments of the market, because it is more profitable. That shouldn't be surprising.

Vienna and Singapore and Helsinki.  By contrast, in Vienna, while the city is no longer the primary constructor of housing as it was 100 years ago, it still plans and directs the construction of housing, guided by the principle of housing as a social right, rather than as a mechanism for building household wealth.  (Typically, property taxes are quite low in Europe and not the primary source of local government revenue.)

-- "Learning from Vienna and Vienna's Social Housing Model," 2013

-- ""How Vienna Cracked the Case of Housing Affordability"," The Tyee

Note that Singapore's housing model has some elements from Vienna, but also allows owner-tenants to benefit from housing price appreciation.

-- "Why Singapore Has One of the Highest Home Ownership Rates," Bloomberg

Helsinki and other cities aren't active constructors of housing, but when they do planning, from the outset they divvy up redevelopment sites as a mix of for profit and social housing tenure forms, where certain sites are given to social housing organizations to develop as 100% affordable housing.

The US form of affordable housing production.  By contrast, the focus of "affordable housing" policy in the US is a small proportion of units--usually 10% or less--being included within for profit housing developments. (This is called inclusionary zoning.) This mixes income levels within a development a bit, but doesn't produce significant numbers of low cost units.

It's not an unholy alliance so much as the reality if you don't have community development mechanisms (organizations, financing, land) dedicated to achieving non-market related goals.

Note that there is a separate social housing sector, but it tends to operate in weaker real estate markets.  In high value markets, federal, state and local housing policy defaults to the market, and provides some inducements for the production of a modicum of units through inclusionary zoning.

Planners didn't create capitalism.  But they have to deal with how it is effected in the United States. But yes, lots of policy elements--segregation of housing choice options and financing, allowable density, homogeneous zoning, the dominance of single family housing zones, alongside significant growth in the US population, capital markets, a land use policy centered around automobility--contribute to the state we're in today.

Planners can offer policy responses, but at the end of the day, the decisions are made by others.

-- "Planning the Capitalist City," pages 18-24, Richard Foglesong