Land Use Regulations
Abuses by landlords and poor living conditions are common in illegal rooming houses around Toronto. Activists want to make them easier to build, and regulate, to add affordable housing options for low-income residents.
The Star
A survey of land use policies in cities and counties of California is designed to inform a more complete understanding of the housing market, sustainability, and economic mobility in the state.
UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design
Sandpoint, Idaho removed minimum parking requirements a decade ago. The city's director of planning describes what happened since.
Strong Towns
If it approves HB 1797, Washington will pace the rest of the nation (even California and Oregon) on reforming zoning to allow more accessory dwelling units.
Sightline Institute
An investigative feature by Governing magazine blames the history of land use regulations like zoning and redlining for the racial segregation of contemporary communities all over the state of Illinois and the country.
Governing
Self-storage facilities have been popping up around Denver long before Marie Kondo's show streamed on Netflix.
The Denver Post
Legislation in Oregon would follow the lead of Minneapolis in overturning single-family zoning—for all cities in the state with more than 10,000 residents.
Willamette Week
The city of Sacramento has implemented one of the most aggressively transit-oriented land use regulation schemes in the country.
The Sacramento Bee
While it's fun to tease about the architectural shortcomings of most newly constructed urban residential buildings in the United States, the causes of its ubiquitous sameness reveals the depths of the country's housing crisis.
Curbed
New Orleans could make it easier to build new homes on small lots in the struggling Lower 9th Ward.
The Advocate
Digging into the city of Everett's recent overhaul of its zoning and development regulations in Downtown and adjacent neighborhoods.
The Urbanist
After legalizing accessory dwelling units in 2016, the city of Ann Arbor hasn't added many accessory dwelling units. Some regulations designed to limit the number of ADUs developed have made the building type impossibly cost prohibitive.
MLive
San Francisco's Planning Commission rejected a bill that would have made it illegal to open new office cafeterias, recommending that legislation be crafted to allow these eateries to be open to the public instead.
San Francisco Chronicle
The public and the "urbanism cognoscenti" do not see eye to eye when it comes to housing policy. A new survey makes the disconnect in opinions on matters of supply, regulations, and affordable housing very clear.
Los Angeles Times
California gets most of the attention, but states all over the country are removing some of the vestiges of local control to help spur housing development, require affordable housing, and control the skyrocketing cost of housing.
Pew Stateline
The city of Missoula professes a strategy of "focusing inward" when it comes to growth and development. A new 'Design Excellence Overlay' will help achieve more goals toward that strategy in the city's downtown.
Missoula Current
The American Housing and Economic Mobility Act probably has no chance of passing into law, but it's still the most substantial gesture toward housing policy by a member of Congress since the subprime crisis of 2008.
The Atlantic
Two downtown-adjacent neighborhoods would no longer require parking for new developments under a proposal under consideration in the city of Houston.
Streetsblog USA
What comparing 25 years of urban expansion on six continents reveals about the changing nature of the built environment.
Vivid Maps
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) has introduced legislation that would tie federal funding to pro-development policies at the local level.
The American Prospect
