Yahoo Headline Writers Should Learn to Read

A new study finds that some “metro areas have used an urban sprawl to continue to provide ample housing stock for residents” whereas areas that have emphasized dense developments have seen rents reach an all-time high.

Yahoo! News headlined its report on this study, “How affordable housing in big cities is hurt by urban sprawl.” Yet neither the article nor the study explains how urban sprawl in affordable metro areas makes housing in dense metro areas less affordable.

“It seems that the metros most effectively meeting the demand for new housing are still primarily doing so by continuing to sprawl,” says the study, “despite an increasing demand for dense, walkable neighborhoods that prioritize sustainability.” This was supposed to have been written by an economist, but wouldn’t an economist question whether demand for dense neighborhoods is really increasing if builders, whose livelihoods depend on keep up with demand, aren’t building them in less-regulated areas?
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Of course, the study goes on to blame single-family zoning for high housing prices even though nearly all of the markets that the study finds are affordable have single-family zoning. The study also suggests that differences in affordability are mainly between big metros and smaller metros, yet Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Ft. Worth, and Houston are all bigger and growing faster than San Francisco-Oakland or Boston, yet remain affordable.

The study notes that “the biggest increases in the multi-family share have occurred in already dense metros such as New York, Boston and San Francisco,” just as planners in those urban areas want. Yet it hasn’t made those areas more affordable. Despite this, the study concludes, contrary to the evidence it provides, that “Dense housing plays an important role in maintaining inclusive housing affordability.” The author of both this study and of Yahoo’s news report need to go back and review the data, which clearly shows that sprawl is affordable; density is not.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

3 Responses to Yahoo Headline Writers Should Learn to Read

  1. Frank says:

    Yahoo is still a thing? ?

  2. JOHN1000 says:

    It is obvious that this “review” of the study was written before anyone actually read the study.

    There was absolutely nothing the study could have discovered that would have changed the pre-written and pre-approved review.

  3. MJ says:

    So the “sprawling” areas referred to in the article are doing a good job of maintaining housing affordability, but the coastal cities that are pursuing ever-denser development are seeing housing become less affordable? At some point aren’t you obliged to start pointing out the obvious? Apparently not, if you write for Yahoo News.

    They fail to mention how sprawl is allegedly “hurting” cities that allow it, apart from the fact that is reducing the scarcity rents generated by packing more and more people into the same amount of space.

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