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Unlocking Home
Alan Durning takes a hard look at the pinch of expensive urban housing and sees what many others have missed. Hidden in city regulations is a set of simple but powerful barriers to housing for all. These rules criminalize history’s answers to affordable dwellings: the rooming house, the roommate, the in-law apartment, and the backyard cottage. In effect, cities have banned what used to be the bottom end of the...Read more » -
We’re Turning 20, and We Want to Celebrate with You
We usually keep our heads down in the (policy) books here at Sightline, but we’re turning 20 this year and, what the heck, it’s time to celebrate! We’re kicking off the year-long celebration on April 5th with a very special shindig in Portland. For all of you in Oregon and Southwest Washington, we hope you’ll join us. You can buy your tickets today via Brown Paper Tickets. We’re excited to...Read more » -
Slow-motion Revolution
What makes the impossible become inevitable? Sightline executive director Alan Durning sets the campaign for a sustainable economy and way of life beside similarly ambitious causes of the past, such as emancipation and suffrage, and finds reasons for optimism.Read more » -
Cascadians, Get Ready to Vote on Voting
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How Low Taxes Lead to High Home Prices in Vancouver, BC
British Columbia is a far wealthier place than it was a decade ago. It has also become a prohibitively expensive place to live for more and more working families, young people, and renters of all ages, thanks to ballooning housing prices. And those high prices are inflated by a tax system that encourages speculative investment in residential property with three key policies: low property taxes, the principal residence capital gains...Read more » -
Welcome to YIMBYtown!
The conversation shared below was part of the YIMBYtown 2022 conference, cohosted by Sightline Institute and Portland: Neighbors Welcome.* As reported in the New York Times, I was feeling triumphant when I opened YIMBYtown in April 2022. I was feeling triumphant because abundant-housing ideas and advocates have gained an immense amount of sway in recent years in Cascadia and around the world. Win after win after win has come in...Read more » -
Giving Tuesday in Cascadia
At Sightline, we know a stronger, more equitable community is only possible when we embody an abundant mindset. With this in mind, some of us at Sightline have shared the organizations across Cascadia and beyond that inspire and give us hope. Please take a moment to celebrate the strength of our collective community and the power of the people by giving to the organizations below: Jay Lee Free Geek In...Read more » -
Oregon Joins Washington to Allow Use of More Empty Bedrooms
Strange as it may seem in a country that might be headed for double-digit home price hikes in the next two years, many US cities make it illegal for groups of people to share big houses. But that will no longer be the case in Oregon. On Monday, that state’s Senate approved House Bill 2583 by a 27-0 vote, with three absences, sending a bipartisan law to the governor’s desk...Read more » -
Housemates Welcome: Washington Strikes Down Household Size Caps
Washington legislators just took a first step towards removing exclusionary rules in local zoning codes. Both legislative chambers approved Senate Bill 5235, which will strike limits on the number of unrelated people who can share a home out of city codes across Washington. One of the many ways Washington cities have historically excluded low-income renters has been capping the number of unrelated people that can live together in a home....Read more » -
Permanent Child Payments Would Deal a Historic Blow to Poverty
Like a tree twisted by a shadow above it, everything about anti-poverty policy in the United States has been shaped by one unusual decision: not to give poor people cash. Want housing, but can’t afford it? Join a voucher waitlist. (Oh, and also sign up separately to 17 other waitlists for particular buildings or organizations.) Launched a small business and need to eat while it grows? Sorry, your state might...Read more »
