As cities across Cascadia look to technological solutions, such as modular construction, to help address the region-wide shortage of affordable housing, one of the biggest factors currently driving up costs is also one of the most resistant to intervention: Land prices, which can add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of producing a … Read more
With partisanship becoming more venomous every day and midterm campaigns ramping up, it may be shocking to learn that Americans from across the ideological spectrum are actually coming closer on one issue: climate change. As back-to-back storms ravage the East Coast and dire warnings come once again from scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate … Read more
This is part two in a three article mini-series exploring how accessory dwelling units could help fill the affordable housing gap. You can read part one here. Part of the solution to housing affordability in booming Cascadian cities could be hidden in plain sight. Could backyard cottages—the darlings of real estate magazines that are mostly … Read more
Polling snapshot: US voters hungry for solutions they’ve likely never heard of
Apartments are banned from half the land around stations on Portland’s next rail line. If that won’t change, the line shouldn’t be built.
The success of the right-wing Heritage Foundation has been so effective in Washington DC with the Trump administration that its dangerous agenda is now getting peddled in Oregon. The Heritage Foundation’s work can be seen by looking at the most destructive members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet. It recommended Scott Pruitt, Betsy DeVos (whose in-laws … Read more
Canada’s west-coast metropolis swiftly and decisively ends single-family zoning; will others follow?
They got a key city board to recommend re-legalizing small duplexes, triplexes and affordability incentives on almost any lot.
Google Street View photos reveal homes and trees are friends, not enemies.
Locals often object to new buildings or increased density in their neighborhoods, whether we’re talking about subsidized homes, apartment buildings, or backyard cottages—and whether or not they may believe in principle that their community needs more homes. Opposition to new homes can hobble community goals for affordability and sustainability. But what if people dislike development because … Read more