Housing supply is offering up something that looks very different than what today's households want to buy.
"Attainable" housing is replacing "affordable" housing in city planning conversations. And attainable lifestyle—including transportation costs—is in the spotlight. Ben Brown culls insights from the weekend's Seaside Prize:
"The Seaside Prize goes to 'individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions to the quality and character of communities.' Obvious candidates are from the fields of design and planning. But receiving the award this year was a team of residential real estate analysts, Todd Zimmerman and Laurie Volk."
"Since the late 1980s, ZVA, as their firm is called, has helped developers overcome the tendency of supply-demand market research to predict the future by looking at the past. Zimmerman and Volk project potential market opportunities by more closely examining behavioral characteristics of demographic slices, especially the biggest slices of all — Baby Boomers and Millennials."
"At Seaside over the weekend, Zimmerman and Volk led a slightly deeper dive into Boomer/Millennial trends post-Great Recession and encouraged a broader conversation about 'Neighborhood Challenges for a Re-Urbanizing Nation.' Mainly the dilemma linked to rising inequality and community un-affordability."

FULL STORY: Here’s to Zimmerman/Volk and to ‘Attainable Housing’

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

San Francisco Suspends Traffic Calming Amidst Record Deaths
Citing “a challenging fiscal landscape,” the city will cease the program on the heels of 42 traffic deaths, including 24 pedestrians.

Adaptive Reuse Will Create Housing in a Suburban Texas Strip Mall
A developer is reimagining a strip mall property as a mixed-use complex with housing and retail.

Study: Anti-Homelessness Laws Don’t Work
Research shows that punitive measures that criminalized unhoused people don’t help reduce homelessness.

In U.S., Urban Gondolas Face Uphill Battle
Cities in Latin America and Europe have embraced aerial transitways — AKA gondolas — as sustainable, convenient urban transport, especially in tricky geographies. American cities have yet to catch up.
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