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Dan Huge news for housing and urbanism: on Monday President Obama came out as a YIMBY with the release of a new “Housing Development Toolkit” for breaking down local barriers to home building: The accumulation of such barriers – including zoning, other land use regulations, and lengthy development approval processes – has reduced the ability of many housing markets to respond to growing demand. The growing severity of undersupplied housing...

[Residents] might also ask why the city insists on ever-taller buildings and doubling or tripling density in single-family zones with accessory dwelling units, even though planners say current zoning has plenty of capacity. So declared the Seattle Times editorial board, parroting one of the most persistent and ubiquitous arguments made during zoning debates far and wide, a rallying cry in neighborhood preservation circles not only in Seattle but in cities...

Micro-housing—dorm-room-sized apartments in desirable, walkable neighborhoods—isn’t for everyone, but it most definitely is for Anna Rogers. Anna is a recent college graduate who grew up in the suburbs of Seattle and now works a retail job while looking to start a career that harnesses her passion for politics. Thanks to a building called OneOne6 on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, Anna can afford to live her twenty-something dream of her own private...

The story is deeply embedded in popular perceptions of the modern city: modest, low-cost apartments succumb to the wrecking ball to make way for ritzy highrises, putting working-class residents out on the street. The displacement caused by demolitions of low-cost housing can be devastating to poorer families and their communities, and urban advocates and policymakers widely agree that minimizing displacement is a critical public policy goal. In the case of...

In Seattle and other fast-growing cities across Cascadia and beyond, bitter stories of people priced out of their homes and of affordable buildings torn down for new construction are all too familiar. The sense of injustice we feel about these stories is well justified. Sightline recently assembled focus groups—random samples of long-time Seattle residents—to talk about the housing crunch, and strong feelings about housing costs ran to a fever pitch...

Note from Alan: As I explained previously, Washington’s Initiative 732 has divided climate hawks so deeply that even writing about it is a task we undertake with trepidation. (To get a sense of the landscape, please read the introduction to the first article in this series.) Organizations and individuals we respect and have collaborated with for decades—indeed, many personal friends of mine—are on opposite sides of the controversy. Sightline has...

Last month, Seattle mom, homeowner, and urbanist Sara Maxana gave a keynote address at the first national YIMBY conference, held in Boulder, Colorado. That’s “Yes In My Back Yard,” an invitation to build more homes—of more types and sizes and affordability levels—so that our cities can remain places of opportunity for many, rather than enclaves of privilege for a lucky few. Sara reminds us that the growth we are seeing in...

Margaret Journalists have been giving a lot of press time to the role of foreign investment and absentee ownership in inflating Vancouver, British Columbia’s housing market these days. But knowing how to interpret that press is another matter. Take for instance this recent article in the Walrus which blamed wealthy investors from mainland China for city’s soaring housing prices. These investors accomplish this, so Kerry Gold, the article’s author, argues,...

Tiny houses may be the darlings of the green-living set—with their own blogs, TV shows and documentaries, and cottage industry of builders, planners, and consultants. But they’re usually illegal. Across Cascadia, to pass legal muster, residential structures must comply with one of three sets of rules: building codes, manufactured home codes, or recreational vehicle certification. They also must comply with zoning codes, which dictate not how they’re built but where...

Editor’s Note December 2016: Great news! BMW ReachNow car-sharing service has expanded its fleet to Portland with 360 vehicles and added 330 vehicles to its fleet in Seattle. We’ve updated the numbers below: Last month, BMW launched its car-sharing brand ReachNow in Seattle, expanding into North America from its half-million-member stronghold in Europe, and I’ll admit that even I, a car-free bike commuter, felt a little dzzzzt of mid-life thrill as I downloaded the...