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Alan Durning

Alan Durning, executive director, founded Northwest Environment Watch in 1993, which became Sightline Institute in 2006. Alan’s current topics of focus include housing affordability and democracy reform. He has also written about parkingMaking Sustainability Legalcar-free livingbike-friendlinesselectric bikes, and climate fairness. Alan has written or contributed to nine Sightline books, including Unlocking Home: Three Keys to Affordable CommunitiesCascadia Scorecard 2007Tax ShiftStuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things, and the award-winning This Place on Earth: Home and Practice of Permanence. Prior to founding Sightline, Alan was a senior researcher at Worldwatch Institute. There, he studied the human dimensions of sustainability and wrote the award-winning book How Much Is Enough?, as well as chapters in seven State of the World reports and articles in hundreds of other publications. A sought-after speaker, he has lectured at the White House, major universities, and conferences on five continents. In addition to his passion for sustainability, Alan is a music fiend and a lover of outdoor pursuits, especially mountaineering and cycling.

Alan Durning

Alan Durning

Latest articles

No, Approval Voting Would Not Start Sooner than Ranked Choice Voting in Seattle

Takeaways In Seattle’s November choice between approval voting and ranked choice voting, AV proponents argue that AV will be implemented ...
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Approval Voting Is a Risky Prospect for Seattle

Takeaways Approval voting (AV) is brand new and little studied. AV hands voters a dilemma: pick your favorite but lose ...
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Welcome to YIMBYtown!

This article is part of the series YIMBYtown 2022 The conversation shared below was part of the YIMBYtown 2022 conference, ...
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Yes, Other Countries Are Making More Progress on Housing, Case 4: The United Kingdom and New Zealand

This article is part of the series Winning Abundant Housing Last time, I chronicled France’s success at boosting homebuilding in ...
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Yes, Other Places Do Housing Better, Case 3: Paris

This article is part of the series Winning Abundant Housing Last time, I described Germany’s secret to abundant housing: financial ...
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Yes, Other Countries Do Housing Better, Case 1: Japan

Takeaways Find audio versions of Sightline articles on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, YouTube, and Apple.   ...
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The Contradiction at the Heart of Housing Policy

Last time, I laid out how the US government turbocharges home-value speculation in the guise of promoting homeownership. This time, ...
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The Problem With US Housing Policy Is That It’s Not About Housing

The Problem with US Housing Policy Is That It Is Not About Housing -- It's About Real Estate Appreciation. Far from boosting equity, affordability, and homeownership, they polarize wealth, exacerbate racial inequality, cut productivity and job creation, speed climate change, and exaggerate the ups and the downs of the business cycle.
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Yes, You Can Build Your Way to Affordable Housing

“You can’t build your way out of a housing affordability problem.” That’s conventional wisdom. I hear it all the time: ...
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