If locals had to bear the cost of their zoning choices, things would look much different today. #DenseClusters #BackTo3

The bogeyman is looking at us in the mirror on housing affordability

In a nutshell. Let’s fix this one. #BackTo3 for the kids.

If the federal government had not funded local arterials and collectors, U.S. land-use patterns would look fundamentally different and zoning very likely would have been forced to evolve for higher residential density and more mixed use.

I like the goal of less cars but can’t help think that fighting a war on cars is like taking an Advil, like winning the Battle of Iwo Jima and that zoning reform, treating the infection with antibiotics, is how you defeat Germany and collapse car centrism decisively. @thewaroncars.bsky.social

Zoning forced an impossible infrastructure bill on towns and so states and the feds had to pick it up.

EVs added and up 20%. Make trains cheaper or and see what happens….

Local zoning mapped a road network in the US that only worked if someone else paid for it.. and that’s exactly what happened.

Car centrism was created by zoning maps

Our 6:1 housing multipliers are designed so that 40% of Americans, mostly older, already-housed owners win big, while everyone else pays for it. A sane 3:1 system would flip that: roughly three-quarters of the country would be better off, including almost every worker under 50 and every renter.

Not many votes but wisdom prevails

This makes me so proud 🇨🇦☺️❤️🇨🇦

In high-demand urban areas, premiums for homes on well connected greenways can reach 10–20% when directly connected to a high-quality bike/ped greenway.

Our 6:1 housing multipliers are designed so that 40% of Americans, mostly older, already-housed owners win big, while everyone else pays for it. A sane 3:1 system would flip that: roughly three-quarters of the country would be better off, including almost every worker under 50 and every renter.

Car centrism was created by zoning maps

Local governments were enabled with nearly full control over land use, while depending on massive state and federal subsidies to sustain the low-density, car-centric built form that their land-use decisions require.

Housing scarcity turns shelter into a speculative asset

Housing scarcity is a major driver of inequality Supply restrictions are a regressive tax on younger households Zoning reform is economically necessary High-multiplier metros distort national productivity More building is the correct macro response

If you zone for more and more cars, that’s exactly what you’ll get.

One too many persons lamented to me that we couldn't build housing in Marin because we were too "full." So I did what any normal person would do and built 3D population density maps so people could see how "full" we are. The black beads represent our workforce commuting in.

If you talk about affordability of electricity, gas, eggs, even health insurance but not HOUSING you are distracting. Housing is severly inflated by scarcity. If you can't say how you'll make market housing affordable in time, like when Boomers were buying in 1970, you are saying mostly nothing.

In 1977, the U.S. median home cost about 2.8× the median wage; by 2023, it’s roughly 6.5×. As wages rose to $75K, housing costs rose far faster to nearly $500K, decoupling of shelter from labor income. The “dream” of owning a home through steady work, now requires dual earners or inherited capital.

The median age of a first-time home buyer in the US has now exceeded 40 for the first time in history, up from 30 in 2010. The median age of all US homebuyers jumped to 59.

Housing abundance is letting a homeowner put an apartment above their garage, an apartment in her house, allowing ADUs by right, making the duplex the by right base in some districts, allowing multifamily housing by right near transit. What is being “removed” other than unnecessary restrictions ?

We need to build denser compact, connected neighborhoods to cut emissions and shorten commutes.

The last century built the middle class by making homeownership possible. This century must rebuild it by making it affordable again.

Housing abundance is letting a homeowner put an apartment above their garage, an apartment in her house, allowing ADUs by right, making the duplex the by right base in some districts, allowing multifamily housing by right near transit. What is being “removed” other than unnecessary restrictions ?

This is remarkable. EVERY COUNTY in Virginia, which is blurple, went blue. Wow.

Want less traffic? Fix zoning Want to walk to a shop ? Fix zoning Want your kids to afford to live in their hometown? Fix zoning Want to reduce CO2 emissions? Fix zoning Want to increase demand for transit? Fix zoning? Want to reduce deaths of people walking and biking? Fix zoning

Still it grows

“Give our grandkids exactly what the Greatest Generation gave the Boomers - the ability to buy a home across the country at 3 times the median adult’s full time wage”

Godfrey is at again….now at Union Station in DC doing his Trump impression for the troops 🤣💀

The north star laser long term party focus needs to be: “Give our grandkids exactly what the Greatest Generation gave the Boomers - the ability to buy a home across the country at 3 times the median adult’s full time wage” #PayItForward Simple. #BackTo3

Sprawl zoning creates car dependency as the only affordable alternative for most Americans. Cars don’t create sprawl, zoning maps and planning regulations that stop growth in a growing country do that all by themselves. The War on Cars should be the War on Zoning

We should put on platform straight away. “We believe in giving to our grandkids what the Greatest Generation gave the Boomers” Simple. #BackTo3

Incentives are all wrong When you sell a home that’s been your primary residence, the IRS lets you exclude up to: $ 250,000 of capital gains if single $ 500,000 of capital gains if married filing jointly from federal income tax, completely tax-free. 2 years in past 5, so you can do in two homes

The fastest way to the multimodal transportation systems we want is to fix the poor land use systems we have.

If you profit from property appreciation exceeding inflation systematically as it has over the last 50 years, it is understandable that you would want it to continue despite its negative effects.

Should our 30-year goal be to bring the country’s housing market for the country’s grandkids incrementally back to the less than 3:1 median price to median income multiplier market the Boomers received when first buying homes, ending scarcity by increasing supply?

If housing as a portion of median income had stayed where it was in 1970, so much more of your paycheck would remain in your pocket. Housing is twice as costly today nationally and 3,4,even 5x higher in many metros #BackTo3

A rigged market built on excess housing inflation through systematic scarcity. Imagine if the average home across the country cost 200k today. That’s the market Boomers found nationally when first buying homes in 1970.

Housing scarcity and high multipliers make up arguably the single most fundamental political issue in America today. It’s just disguised and reframed as separate discrete crises: affordability, inequality, stagnation, crime, homelessness, polarization, culture wars #BackTo3

That giant sucking sound Ross Perot went on about in 1992 is actually setup over America quietly sucking money out of local economies nationally. The higher the multiplier, the more money is getting extracted out of pocketsIt’s mostly not oligarchs but localigarchs. eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/gro...

Metro wide zoning reform is the thing that will over time reduce automobile and parking demand, increase transit and safe bike infrastructure demand, and lower housing costs.

GDP would be 36% higher, $1.7 trillion annually. Zoning-driven housing scarcity acts as a spatial cartel, locking labor and capital into less-productive regions and transferring wealth to incumbent homeowners in high-cost metros eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/gro...

Generational theft GDP would be 36% higher, $1.7 trillion annually. In effect, zoning-driven housing scarcity acts as a spatial cartel, locking labor and capital into less-productive regions and transferring wealth to incumbent homeowners in high-cost metros eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/gro...

Coming soon to the sky near you www.newsweek.com/america-on-b...

Don’t forget. 3/4 of households in the Netherlands have a car. They are just able to use them much less than we have to due to our land decisions.

That giant sucking sound Ross Perot went on about in 1992 is actually setup over America quietly sucking money out of local economies nationally. The higher the multiplier, the more money is getting extracted out of pocketsIt’s mostly not oligarchs but localigarchs. eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/gro...

Generational theft GDP would be 36% higher, $1.7 trillion annually. In effect, zoning-driven housing scarcity acts as a spatial cartel, locking labor and capital into less-productive regions and transferring wealth to incumbent homeowners in high-cost metros eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/gro...