Book review: William Fischel, Zoning Rules! (1 of 2)
Over the holidays, I read William Fischel’s new (2015) book on urban planning, Zoning Rules! The Economics of Land Use Regulation. It’s an important, interesting, and – fortunately for me – readable book on the topic. Fischel draws upon three or four decades of research on the topic, as well as his experience as a member of his local zoning board in New Hampshire.…
68 Comments Building a better city: Policies and perspectives (part 2 of 2)
This is the second and final post discussing some broad ideas for building a better city. The first post discussed the dynamic nature of cities and argued that a focus on appropriate pricing and incentive mechanisms was important to managing urban ills without stifling beneficial change.…
Building a better city: Policies and perspectives (part 1 of 2)
This is the first half of a two-part series of posts. It summarises a few ideas that have been banging around the back of my head for a while – basically, an attempt to answer the question: “What can economics do for cities?”…
Costs, benefits, and East-West Connections
How transport projects are evaluated has always been of interest to me. I believe that although the standard cost benefit analysis approach that lies behind the NZTA economic evaluation manual has its flaws, the resulting BCR is still an important factor in determining whether a project, or a particular project option, should proceed.…
Are cities really getting less dense?
I have been pondering a comment in William Fischel’s generally excellent new book on zoning to the effect that:
…suburbanization and reduced urban density are worldwide phenomena. All but 16 of the 120 urban areas on every continent grew outward and reduced their overall population densities in the last decade of the previous millennium, even as almost all of them grew in total population.…
Optimal heritage zoning: an empirical perspective
Back in July, I went down to Wellington for this year’s New Zealand Association of Economists conference. I really enjoy NZAE – people attend because they’re genuinely excited about sharing their ideas and learning from other people. (Stu Donovan and John Polkinghorne were also there.)…
Geography and housing supply dynamics
Last week, I introduced the concept of elasticity of supply with respect to price as a useful measure of housing market dynamics. Supply elasticities measure how responsive builders are to an increase in demand. In other words, when people turn up wanting dwellings, how quickly do the tradies start building more?…
Concepts: Elasticity of housing supply
How should we think through the dynamics of housing markets?
Conceptually, there’s a very simple answer and a very complex one. The simple version is that housing is just another market, shaped by the interaction of demand – i.e. people turning up with money to buy dwellings – and supply – people building new dwellings to meet demand.…
Do public golf courses “crowd out” public housing?
Last month, I took a look at the costs and benefits of publicly owned golf courses (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). A few key findings from that analysis: Golf courses are different from public parks, as they can only be used by a small number of paying customers
The benefit of redeveloping golf courses to offer a mix of new neighbourhoods and public parks could be as much as nine times higher than the benefit of the status quo to golfers
Publicly owned golf courses don’t pay their fair share of rates, meaning that the rest of us have to pay higher taxes.…
The economics of heritage buildings
Last week, I took a quick look at the relationship between gentrification and the preservation of historic buildings. People often argue that preserving old buildings as they are is a good way of preserving the culture and community of an area.…
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