What happened to land lift in Auckland before and after AUP? Does anyone even apply for upzonings?

I used to think the "stuff their mouths with gold" housing strategy was infeasible, because governments already extract 100% of the upzoning surplus (through inclusionary zoning, development charges, etc). 1/

Vancouver (Extra) Special 33' lots 4 and 6 storey single-stair buildings. 3Br accessible flats, adjacent to a park. (sketchup / ai render)

If you're a thinker or do-er in the housing space and you haven't subscribed to @michaelwiebe.bsky.social's substack, you're doing it wrong! It's a living urban econ lit review, inspired by @mattsclancy.bsky.social's New Things Under the Sun. Great stuff! Here's an example ⤵️.

New lit review post: filtering. 1/

The Tyee continues to push zombie Condonomics. See my debunking below.

Could we improve housing affordability by reducing the quality of homes? (the idea being that poor people can better afford lower-quality housing) Not necessarily. If you reduce quality without increasing supply, you just get rich people living in crappy homes. (hello SF)

Why don't developers refer to vacancy chain effects when defending their projects at city hall? New buildings free up cheaper old homes, as people move in and vacate their previous unit. www.buildingabundance.ca/p/vacancy-ch...

Does filtering have any policy relevance? What is added by knowing the filtering rate? (Beyond knowing that poor people live in old housing)

Trickle-down economics: policies that "disproportionately favor the upper tier of the economic spectrum". Does legalizing market-rate housing count as "trickle-down"? 1/

@ravikahlon.bsky.social gets it:

The concept of "filtering" is so confused. People think that filtering doesn't work, because homes filter upwards (ie. new occupants are richer than previous occupants). But that's just another way of saying that there is a worsening housing shortage! 1/

This graphic assumes land prices are fixed. But wouldn't land prices be higher for apartment-zoned land, since developers have higher willingness-to-pay? 1/

A must read for any and all commentators and journalists on housing. @michaelwiebe.bsky.social is an economist has specialized in replication: basically he’s a scientist who fact checks other scientists.

This thread from Michael Wiebe is well worth a read. So many of our failures in urbanism stem from people who are unable to see the second order effects of policies. The impact of upzoning a parcel of land on the value of *other* parcels, to take one example

New post: I read Patrick Condon's book, so you don't have to. 1/

Inclusionary zoning in a nutshell: provide subsidized homes, but at the expense of completely removing the market's ability to absorb demand increases.

The letter is ready, thanks to all those who helped out! Starting to gather signature now, please consider signing (link at top of letter) & spread the word. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Defend central bank independence: reinstate Lisa Cook Defend academic integrity: retract Cook (2014)

I've been focused on this paper for several years. Cook never responded to emails, JEG refused to consider publishing my comment, the paper continues to be cited for its quantitative results, it's featured on Econtalk and NPR. Does anyone care about whether the findings are true?

Defend central bank independence: reinstate Lisa Cook Defend academic integrity: retract Cook (2014)

What is the theory of optimal land value capture? Intuitively, cities use spot rezoning to keep apartment-zoned land scarce and expensive, maximizing taxable land lift. 1/

Let's look at one problem in Cook's paper; it's easy to see that the results are noise. Cook finds a negative effect of racial violence on patenting, using annual data. But when we use the state-year data to construct an annual dataset, the results disappear. 1/

Interesting new paper compares density upzonings in two similar BC cities that had dramatically different effects in terms of construction & value uplift. Keys to the difference? Effects were only felt when upzoning was accompanied with expedited permitting processes & reduced parking requirements.

Portland's funded inclusionary zoning program has developers providing Affordable units in exchange for a property tax cut. Now, devs could pay the city cash in lieu of Affordable units. And the city could pay devs cash in lieu of the tax cut. But then why have the program?

I wrote a YIMBY FAQ:

Should Lisa Cook resign from the Federal Reserve? No. Should her most famous paper be retracted? Yes.

Urban economics hasn't kept up with the YIMBY movement. YIMBYs are passing policies that upzone land for apartments, but cutting edge research is still focused on a world of single-family homes, where regulations only affect whether you can build a house or not. 1/

New post: a review of Cameron Murray's 'The Great Housing Hijack". On land and housing prices: 1/

According to landscape architects, rezoning land from agricultural to residential doesn't reduce housing prices, because rezoning just pushes up land values.

Interesting new essay on rising housing costs in the Journal of Economic Perspectives:

The concept of "filtering" is so confused. People think that filtering doesn't work, because homes filter upwards (ie. new occupants are richer than previous occupants). But that's just another way of saying that there is a worsening housing shortage! 1/

Working through the same mechanics using Canadian data. And considering effects household formation for good measure.

Great article by @helenl.bsky.social on non-market housing. One important point: demand for non-market housing is related to the supply of market housing. 1/

Upzoning is like double musical chairs: it moves a chair (parcel) from the single-family game to the apartment game, making it easier for apartment-developers to get a chair. And since apartments are a cheaper form of housing, this improves overall affordability. 1/

New project: I'm writing a literature review called Building Abundance on housing and infrastructure research. First post is reviewing the literature on vacancy chains, link below.

When discussing reforms like multiplex zoning, demand estimates rarely enter the discussion (except as a force to be countered). @lausterna.bsky.social and I think that’s unfortunate and we run some simple estimates what it would look like to zone for the demand to live in an area.

Important point by @jensvb.bsky.social and @lausterna.bsky.social: when people move out to live on their own, their housing costs go up, but (by revealed preference) they are better off. Hence, housing costs alone are an incomplete picture. doodles.mountainmath.ca/posts/2025-0...

Land value capture is focused on upzoning, but massive land wealth has been created even in heritage-protected neighborhoods like First Shaughnessy (where no upzoning occurs). This wealth accrues to private landowners instead of the public, but our value capture policies do nothing.

Economists: What's your favorite walkthrough of a two-sector general equilibrium model with production and consumption? ie. with markets for inputs (rental rates w, r) and goods (prices p1, p2) #econsky

New housing is expensive and not affordable to the poor. But the people who can afford to live in the new building don't keep their old home; they vacate it, which allows someone else to move in. That in turn vacates an affordable home. The affordability benefits of new housing are indirect.

Upzoning makes land more valuable ('land lift'). In Vancouver, planners try to minimize land lift. But there are two opposing ways to do so: a) tax the new value, so developers pay less for land. b) make sure no value is created. With multiplexes, the city is doing (b). 1/

Land value capture is focused on upzoning, but massive land wealth has been created even in heritage-protected neighborhoods like First Shaughnessy (where no upzoning occurs). This wealth accrues to private landowners instead of the public, but our value capture policies do nothing.

Now with examples in the thread 👇

Upzoning makes land more valuable ('land lift'). In Vancouver, planners try to minimize land lift. But there are two opposing ways to do so: a) tax the new value, so developers pay less for land. b) make sure no value is created. With multiplexes, the city is doing (b). 1/

Economists: What's your favorite walkthrough of a two-sector general equilibrium model with production and consumption? ie. with markets for inputs (rental rates w, r) and goods (prices p1, p2) #econsky

Econ profs: if you're teaching intermediate micro, housing is a great topic for digging into the fundamentals. michaelwiebe.com/blog/2024/08...

Howard and Liebersohn (2021) report that: - rents have increased in low-supply-elasticity cities (below median), and decreased in high-elasticity cities (above median) - but population has grown similarly across low- and high-elasticity cities What's going on? 1/

The stadium seating model of housing: - rich fans move in and want more VIP skyboxes - NIMBYs block it: "skyboxes are not affordable" - rich fans instead get lower-bowl seats - this pushes middle-income fans to the bleachers - now low-income fans can't afford any seats 1/

Remember when @christineboyle.bsky.social tried to legalize apartments in the mansion district of Shaughnessy? One owner opposed it, saying they were simply paying for the right to have mansions (!) In reality, banning apartments is a huge subsidy to mansion owners. 1/