Zoning Rules!William A. Fischel
Zoning Rules!
by William A. Fischel · first published 2015
16mentions
5recommended by
6HN commenters
2016–2024first – last mentioned
83% recommend17% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Economic analysis of how zoning and land use rules shape housing prices and local politics. It offers a thorough history of zoning and a Coasian view of homeowner incentives. Suited to readers seeking the economics.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
…http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/04/romer_on_charte.htm.... In the U.S., we've collectively done a lot, culturally and legally, to make real estate a principal savings vehicle for many if not most people, and this has had a lot of negative consequences. Zoning Rules!: The Economics of Land Use Regulation (http://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land-Regulation...) by is a good introduction to some of them. Chapters 7 – 9 in particular explain how the 1970s…
on “New Cities” ↗> Surely this is a side effect of something else. I recommend the writings of Prof. William Fischel (author of Zoning Rules![0]) to answer this question-- he uses a Coasian approach to identify that restrictive/exclusionary zoning policy is a rational response by homeowners when they are given undue entitlements. One entitlement…
on “Up to 70% of people in developed countries 'have seen incomes stagnate'” ↗…http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2016/08/31/why-is-aus.... The big problem is zoning: https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/r... as it was implemented in the '70s: http://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land-Regulation... By the way, there is much heat in discussions about housing prices and urban development, but very little light and much misunderstanding. A good rule of thumb is simple:…
on “Toronto Is in a Housing Bubble” ↗Why do we have clearly divided zoned areas for work and residential again? What era did that start? If you really, really want to know: https://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land-Regulatio...
on “The Golden Girls Would Violate Zoning Laws” ↗…eventually go back to the taxation policy on land and other natural resources. I can't recommend enough the book by William Fischel, "The Economics of Zoning Laws"[0] (later published in a revised edition as "Zoning Rules!") to see the rationality of all actors in the current paradigm. And the constructive recommendations? 1) Repeal Prop 13. 2) Push for a Land Value Tax. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Zoning-Laws-Property-Approa...…
on “Peak Millennial? Cities Can’t Assume a Continued Boost from the Young” ↗…and politically. Furthermore, there is a vast amount of research showing that zoning laws hold tremendous (and quite possibly primary) impact over prices. To start, you might be interested in the book Zoning Rules! by William A. Fischel. Excuse me for saying so, I can't help but think you made this comment with virtually no knowledge around zoning and urban development in general, and I don't want people to be…
on “How to Fix San Francisco’s Housing Market” ↗…parking: http://amzn.to/2jvfxpJ - Donald Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking". Here are some books about zoning and regulation: Ryan Avent's "The Gated City": http://amzn.to/2jv3dpk Bill Fischel's Zoning Rules!: http://amzn.to/2j62fTw - dry and very, very thorough.
on “Why Many Cities Have No Money” ↗…investment companies like Blackstone Group is spotty and difficult to follow [3], on purpose. That's not true. Zoning is the big problem: https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B... or see Zoning Rules! by Fischel. Blackstone's investments only make sense because of artificial supply limits. Remove those, and their whole strategy is destroyed. The situation really is primarily about supply and demand.
on “There is more to high house prices than constrained supply” ↗…laws that are used for price fixing. > Are you saying the very idea of zoning strikes you as a problem? Or are you trying to call out the bad implementations which strangle urban prosperity in the US? Zoning Rules! by William Fischel gives good a history of zoning. Zoning was originally for segregation within the city but to the question of prices, no it was not inherently problematic. It was not until the 1970s…
on “Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?” ↗…efforts to the contrary, you cannot legislate away supply, demand, and prices. Preventing new development appears to have really taken off in the 1970s, according to Chapters 7 and 8 of William Fischel's Zoning Rules!: http://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land-Regulation.... Until we reverse that dynamic (or make cities less attractive places to live) we're going to see rising prices.
on “The Golden Generation: Why China’s super-rich send their children abroad” ↗…see this both from the link and from Google’s Ngram viewer, which sees virtually no references to gentrification until the late 70s, and the term really takes off later than that. Moreover, the book Zoning Rules! discusses how this actually happened: https://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land-Regulatio.... The fact that it used to be relatively easy to build new housing as demand increases means that…
on “Should we build lots more housing in San Francisco?” ↗> How to solve the housing crisis: get the government out. It’s not just government; private contracts often prohibit homeowners from serving more residents. In Zoning Rules! (https://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land-Regulatio...), William Fischel describes how zoning can substitute for private CC&Rs, which are worse than zoning in that amendments often require…
on “Things that are illegal to build in most American cities now” ↗…(http://jakeseliger.com/2015/12/27/why-did-cities-freeze-in-t...) It's also a genuine question and I haven't seen a good answer to it, though two people on Twitter pointed me to William Fischel’s book Zoning Rules!
on “Home is where the cartel is: On the politics and economics of land-use controls” ↗> I recommend the writings of Prof. William Fischel (author of Zoning Rules![0]) to answer this question-- he uses a Coasian approach to identify that restrictive/exclusionary zoning policy is a rational response by homeowners when they are given undue entitlements. Very interesting,…
on “Up to 70% of people in developed countries 'have seen incomes stagnate'” ↗…stuff right when so many places are trying - and not doing a great job - to copy Silicon Valley, but also have that exact same NIMBY problem. William Fischel draws some links with environmentalism in Zoning Rules! ( http://amzn.to/2oIKbyM ) which make sense. Not that he's against it, but just that it sometimes gets a bit perverted to further the ends of NIMBYs rather than actually protecting much of anything.…
on “In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”” ↗