Posts by Pete Rodrigue — Contributor
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Zoning: The hidden trillion dollar tax
Zoning in cities like DC is starting to get expensive. Maybe trillions of dollars too expensive. Economists Enrico Moretti and Chang-Tai Hsieh find that if we lowered restrictions that keep people from building new housing in just three cities (New York, San Jose, and San Francisco) to the level of the median American city, US GDP would have been 9.7% higher in 2009— about… Keep reading…
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In its attempts to provide affordable housing, DC has struggled to set clear goals
In 2006 and 2012, DC set clear numbers for how many affordable housing units either needed to be built or needed to be preserved by a specific date. In both cases, there wasn’t enough data to actually track progress, and the goals fell by the wayside. Today, there still isn’t a plan for providing affordable housing for everyone who needs it. Advocates and District officials… Keep reading…