Looking for Housing Solutions? Look to the Past

According to an article by Michael Andersen, "the 1900s are proof positive that market-priced housing, if there’s enough of it, can be perfectly capable of controlling housing costs for those of us who aren’t currently poor."

Andersen makes a case study of Portland development and land use regulation history, finding that in the decades before zoning laws separated uses and limited the size of buildings, the city's growth didn't cripple the economics of living in the city, as is occurring in the Portland and other cities around the country. Andersen notes when the change from the early-1900s reality of Portland from today's:

Portland approved its first zoning laws in 1918 and expanded them by popular vote in 1924, limiting basic construction to four stories and maximum height to 15 stories; it was approximately the same year that local streetcar usage started its long decline. In 1945, lawns and driveways became mandatory in most of the city as minimum lot sizes were set at 5,000 square feet for single-family zones; in 1959, duplexes and internal home divisions were banned from single-family zones.

Included in Andersen's information-rich polemic is a reference to Justin Palmer’s "amazing" Age of a City map, which color-codes almost every building in Portland by its decade of construction.