Urbanexus Update - Issue #10
Please scroll down for my weekly collection of information and opinion about changes across, and beyond, metropolitan regions that create opportunities—and challenges—for sustainable real estate investment and community development.
Housing in the USA
There is substantial variation in rental rates for higher-end apartments around the USA.
A slow-walk into a housing shortage — www.sightline.org
Part 1 in a two-part series about Seattle’s zoning history and its impact on the city’s housing shortage today.
Build all kinds of housing almost everywhere.
Sorely needed Housing—or gentrification bombs?
Bay Area developer Danny Haber's projects in West Oakland.
Zillow ranks the hottest US housing markets.
Markets in the USA that are attracting Millennials.
Award winning mixed-income housing — ideas.stantec.com
Downtown Denver is booming, and Ashley Union Station provides a fully integrated home for families from multiple income levels.
Tracking for-sale housing inventory — www.calculatedriskblog.com
Watching inventory helps to understand the housing market.
AD&C Loan Growth — eyeonhousing.org
Tight availability of acquisition, development, and construction (AD&C) loans has been a limiting factor for home building growth, but easing credit conditions and a growing loan base have helped expand residential construction activity in a thin inventory environment.
151 Years of America’s housing history — www.thenation.com
A "progressive" perspective on how housing policy, programs, and regulation have evolved since New York City enacted the first tenement-law regulation in 1867.
Housing the unhoused
If it's a homeless emergency, why don't we provide shelter?
Health officials say there's a way to begin dealing with the health effects of unsheltered homelessness: Have shelter available by next winter.
A Seattle church and a real estate developer step up to provide "high-barrier" (no drugs and alcohol) housing for the unhoused.
Perspective on tiny house "villages" for the unhoused
No link between homeless villages and crime rates, Guardian review suggests, but experts view them as a less than ideal solution.
Metropolitan areas in the USA
Living costs — www.businessinsider.com
The most and least expensive places to live in the USA
Since 2010, the City of Seattle has had the highest rate of core city (not overall metro area) growth in the USA.
Pervasive suburbanization — www.newgeography.com
The 2017 data on core city and suburban growth in the USA.
Around the world
Public policy and real estate markets — twitter.com
A low income housing plan and growth policy result in positive signs for real estate investment in Kenya.
Environment
Construction and waste — www.seattlemag.com
High rates of construction in places like Seattle create a waste management challenge.
California is shattering renewable energy records
So why are greenhouse emissions creeping up? "Curtailment" is the answer.
Architecture and urban design
Learning from Tom Wolfe — archpaper.com
Some architects and urban designers may still be traumatized by Tom Wolfe’s criticism of modernism but he made some points that some took to heart.