The “commonly accepted” 30 percent standard for judging housing affordability leaves out transportation and location At City Observatory, we’ve long been dissatisfied with commonly used measures of describing housing affordability. There are lots of reasons to believe that a single,…
Good decisions result only if state officials are transparent and honest City Observatory has been closely following the proposal to spend $500 million widening the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter in Portland. In the process, we and others have…
Low house prices signify problems, not affordability There’s a presumption that low housing prices are a sign of affordability, and a related belief that if housing prices rise, that its “a bad thing” because it must mean that a neighborhood…
What City Observatory did this week 1. Kevin Bacon and Musical Chairs teach us housing economics. It’s an article of faith among economists that more housing, even higher end housing, will help ease rising rents. But to lay-people, that seems…
Gentrification: Here’s your all-purpose list, from artists to zoning, of who and what’s to blame When bad things happen, we look around for someone to blame. And when it comes to gentrification, which is loosely defined as somebody not like…