Housing
Blog
More Rent Control Makes Things Worse
Rent control is the bad penny legislation that keeps turning up in California. It is widely regarded as crummy economic policy by economists, it ultimately leads to rental shortages and higher rents and it is based on the faulty idea that private property is somehow public property. And yet, here ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Seattle’s ‘social housing’ plan struggles to get off the ground
Two years ago, voters approved Initiative 135, which created the Seattle Social Housing Developer. Supporters of Initiative 135 argued the Seattle Social Housing Developer would be “a new, powerful tool to counter” the city’s housing crisis by empowering a governmental entity to develop and acquire properties for housing. Explained the ...
Blog
Examining the roots of California’s ongoing insurance crisis
Examining the roots of California’s ongoing insurance crisis by Rafael Perez | April 24, 2025 There are two uncomfortable truths that have settled in after the smoke cleared from the Los Angeles County fires. The first is that the public will pay for a significant share of the damage. The ...
Blog
West Coast cities need to catch up on office-to-home conversions
Some buildings are in the pipeline, just waiting for approval, but many cities need to do more improving of infrastructure, cleanliness and safety in order to thrive. In a sign of good news, more office-to-residential conversions have developed in cities as distinct as Cleveland, Houston and Washington, D.C. The West ...
Blog
New Rankings Confirm California’s Status as Too Restrictive for Homebuilding
In fact, those nine are all among the bottom 15. Los Angeles landed in the middle of the rankings, even though its “composite price levels” are 8.6 times higher than income, higher than San Jose (7.9), San Diego (7.7), San Francisco (7.6) and even New York City (6.6). California, was ...
Blog
Even liberal cities are taking steps to boost housing construction
The very liberal city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, just accepted the reality that excessive government regulations prevent adequate housing production. The city imposed what is being hailed as “one of the most ambitious changes to any city’s zoning in decades” by eliminating exclusionary zoning (permitting only single family homes) and allowing residential buildings ...
Blog
Single-Family Homes Don’t Fulfill Everyone’s Dreams – Or Budgets
Single-Family Homes Don’t Fulfill Everyone’s Dreams – Or Budgets By Thomas Irwin | March 28, 2025 As the father of two young children, one of my primary roles is to be a sounding board for all kinds of desires from my children. These run the gambit from the ordinary and ...
Book
New Free Cities Book
New Book “The War on Suburbia” Challenges the Ideological Battle Against American Suburbs
SACRAMENTO – Acclaimed journalist and policy analyst Steven Greenhut released today his latest book, The War on Suburbia, a compelling examination of how urban planning, government policies, and ideological battles threaten the future of suburban living. Published by the Pacific Research Institute, this book offers a critical look at how policymakers, environmentalists, and urban ...
Blog
Office conversions can help address L.A.’s housing shortage
Even before the pandemic, such adaptive-reuse efforts were taking place. Lately it’s become more relevant given the escalation in housing costs along with low inventory across the residential marketplace. The Los Angeles wildfires also have provided impetus for this idea. It’s better for the environment when one doesn’t have to ...
Blog
Rent controls will slow rebuilding L.A. from the wildfires
The Wall Street Journal talked to Richard Green, director of the University of Southern California’s Lusk Center for Real Estate. Restrictions he mentioned were California Coastal Commission restraints and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). And Proposition 13, the 1978 tax-limitation measure, left property as about the only area of ...
More Rent Control Makes Things Worse
Rent control is the bad penny legislation that keeps turning up in California. It is widely regarded as crummy economic policy by economists, it ultimately leads to rental shortages and higher rents and it is based on the faulty idea that private property is somehow public property. And yet, here ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Seattle’s ‘social housing’ plan struggles to get off the ground
Two years ago, voters approved Initiative 135, which created the Seattle Social Housing Developer. Supporters of Initiative 135 argued the Seattle Social Housing Developer would be “a new, powerful tool to counter” the city’s housing crisis by empowering a governmental entity to develop and acquire properties for housing. Explained the ...
Examining the roots of California’s ongoing insurance crisis
Examining the roots of California’s ongoing insurance crisis by Rafael Perez | April 24, 2025 There are two uncomfortable truths that have settled in after the smoke cleared from the Los Angeles County fires. The first is that the public will pay for a significant share of the damage. The ...
West Coast cities need to catch up on office-to-home conversions
Some buildings are in the pipeline, just waiting for approval, but many cities need to do more improving of infrastructure, cleanliness and safety in order to thrive. In a sign of good news, more office-to-residential conversions have developed in cities as distinct as Cleveland, Houston and Washington, D.C. The West ...
New Rankings Confirm California’s Status as Too Restrictive for Homebuilding
In fact, those nine are all among the bottom 15. Los Angeles landed in the middle of the rankings, even though its “composite price levels” are 8.6 times higher than income, higher than San Jose (7.9), San Diego (7.7), San Francisco (7.6) and even New York City (6.6). California, was ...
Even liberal cities are taking steps to boost housing construction
The very liberal city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, just accepted the reality that excessive government regulations prevent adequate housing production. The city imposed what is being hailed as “one of the most ambitious changes to any city’s zoning in decades” by eliminating exclusionary zoning (permitting only single family homes) and allowing residential buildings ...
Single-Family Homes Don’t Fulfill Everyone’s Dreams – Or Budgets
Single-Family Homes Don’t Fulfill Everyone’s Dreams – Or Budgets By Thomas Irwin | March 28, 2025 As the father of two young children, one of my primary roles is to be a sounding board for all kinds of desires from my children. These run the gambit from the ordinary and ...
New Free Cities Book
New Book “The War on Suburbia” Challenges the Ideological Battle Against American Suburbs
SACRAMENTO – Acclaimed journalist and policy analyst Steven Greenhut released today his latest book, The War on Suburbia, a compelling examination of how urban planning, government policies, and ideological battles threaten the future of suburban living. Published by the Pacific Research Institute, this book offers a critical look at how policymakers, environmentalists, and urban ...
Office conversions can help address L.A.’s housing shortage
Even before the pandemic, such adaptive-reuse efforts were taking place. Lately it’s become more relevant given the escalation in housing costs along with low inventory across the residential marketplace. The Los Angeles wildfires also have provided impetus for this idea. It’s better for the environment when one doesn’t have to ...
Rent controls will slow rebuilding L.A. from the wildfires
The Wall Street Journal talked to Richard Green, director of the University of Southern California’s Lusk Center for Real Estate. Restrictions he mentioned were California Coastal Commission restraints and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). And Proposition 13, the 1978 tax-limitation measure, left property as about the only area of ...
