Site values are routinely discussed in the industry, being quoted in most development financing agreements. (The land is typically collateral, which needs to be valued).

Instead of comparing housing need and zoned capacity, a more relevant and actionable comparison is between sale prices and the cost of supply. Or, equivalently, whether upzoning affects land values.

Why Canada's housing crisis is a productivity crisis, too Ricardo Hausmann and Eric Protzer: Canada's lack of suitable housing is a social problem, but it can also stymie growth. Read how.

This brilliant article describes the link between Canada’s poor economic growth and our restrictive municipal housing policies.

“Canada cannot build a 21st-century economy with a 20th-century housing regime”

The Problem With Left-Wing NIMBYism YouTube video by Oh The Urbanity!

This @ohtheurbanity.bsky.social video provides a great overview of why rent control alone and public housing alone will not solve the housing shortage. The only way out of a housing shortage is to build more housing, both public and market-rate. We need a multi-faceted approach. #a2council

The humble & affordable 3 storey walk up flats, so common in 60’s-80’s, can’t be built today;
-no lift
-needs sprinklers & pumps
-slabs too thin
-no thermal or acoustic insulation
-parking non-compliant
-windows too open
List goes on & makes housing all the more expensive, esp what should be easy

'Perverse': Sydney council wants to ban commercial student housing For every 10 student rooms being built, there is only one residential property in an area of Sydney's east. The mayor says the housing market has been "monopolised".

Perhaps instead of claiming that student housing is crowding out apartments, Randwick council might consider zoning additional capacity in Kensington and Kingsford? They have the ability to do that
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

The main advantage of Build-to-Rent is security of tenure.
Renting in Europe or America is more secure than Australia -- because we have the wrong landlords. Mum and Dad investors churn and evict whereas corporate landlords encourage long leases.

Another paper (among many) finding that inclusionary zoning requirements backfire.
In contrast, when I ask advocates of affordable housing requirements for evidence they cannot provide any.

Medium vs High Density: Why Do We Have to Choose? YouTube video by Oh The Urbanity!

Medium vs High Density: Why Do We Have to Choose?

Isn't it simpler to say upzoning moves the red line to the right?

It's a very good paper.
But the main way that "upzoning works to reduce prices" is by reducing the price of existing homes.
The new homes are often relatively expensive, even if they have a low land/structure ratio.

The trickiest thing about arguing for more dense housing?

Half the people who object say it’ll just be luxury housing for the rich.

And the other half say you’re just building undesirable slums no one wants to live in.

High-End Construction Really Does Help Everyone A new rung at the top of the housing ladder permits people lower down to climb up.

new from me: a story about VACANCY CHAINS, the idea that underlies the argument that more housing is good even if you can't afford it www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

How much you need to earn to buy a house now For the average sole wage earner, the dream of buying a median-priced house is “basically dead and buried”, experts warn.

Last night Willoughby council decided to lock up more housing under heritage protection within 800m of a train and metro station.
Decisions like that across Sydney and Australia lead directly to the reality outlined in the SMH this morning.

www.smh.com.au/property/new...

We have known for decades that so-called “inclusionary zoning” is bad policy. Nonetheless, it is politically durable because it lets elected officials pose as friends of the poor while indulging their NIMBY constituents’ desire to block new housing in their neighborhoods.

Locations of new homes built in Switzerland in 2018

Country-wide effects of new housing supply: Evidence from moving chains, by Lukas Hauck and Frederic Kluser

Another new paper on housebuilding and vacancy chains, this time with data on every Swiss resident & housing unit! An interesting context given Switzerland's high immigration, very large rented sector and strong tenancy rent controls... frederickluser.github.io/files/Moving...

A noise-related fee, varying by time, flightpath and decibels, would be less costly than a curfew.

Willoughby map showing their plans to weaponise heritage against low and midrise housing

It's past time that the state government stepped in and prevented councils from weaponising heritage controls against housing.
Not just preventing overreach like here in Willoughby. Across Sydney, but inner city councils ate the worst offenders by far

Nearly half (48 per cent) of people either strongly or tended to support increased residential density in their own neighbourhood, up from 46 per cent last year and 44 per cent in 2024. About 17 per cent of people were strongly opposed to the idea, while 18 per cent were ambivalent. Matt Levinson, the committee’s head of corporate affairs, said: “We’ve seen [support for increased density in people’s own suburbs] gradually moving up year on year, and the number of people who oppose it gradually declining. Two-thirds of the city now see it as OK in their own neighbourhood.

This is what winning looks like.

YIMBY Melbourne and Sydney YIMBY present the Order Without Design Australian Tour poster

Cities are the vital engines of the Australian economy, and how we build them matters.

This is a vital evening for those passionate about solving the housing crisis, and building more affordable, liveable, and sustainable Australian cities.

events.humanitix.com/order-withou...

While cutting red tape sounds great, how do we do it?
One approach is to require rigorous cost-benefit comparisons of regulations.
This would find many regulations to be excessive; including land use, environment, lending restrictions, airport security, product safety, copyright, etc. 4/4

Best practice for supply-side reform | Inflection Points To maximise the impact of supply-side policy, reform should focus on bans over burdens, and markets over individual firms.

Of course, the other 32% also matters and should be reduced. But, as @1finaleffort.bsky.social argues, policy should "target bans, not burdens."
inflectionpoints.work/articles/bes... 3/4

Housing is an example.
The Queensland Productivity Commission reports that a wide range of regulations add $186,000 to the cost of a new greenfields house in Brisbane. $128,000 (68%) of this is direct prohibition of extra residential housing. 2/4

qpc.qld.gov.au/content/inqu...

Both sides agree we need to cut red tape.
cdn.liberal.org.au/pdf/2026-Der...
Good. But there is too much emphasis on compliance costs.
The costs of prohibitions are typically far greater.
The main problem isn't that regulations make things difficult. It's they stop worthwhile things altogether. 1/4

No. It's representative. The same story is playing out with minor variations in every second suburb in Sydney and Melbourne.
It's people like these that make housing unaffordable.

Melbourne is in the middle of a housing revolution – have the yimbys already won? Advocates say even they are surprised by Allan government’s embrace of higher density housing, but warn construction costs risk city becoming ‘victim of its success’

For decades, the loudest voices in planning were saying "No." We started YIMBY Melbourne to say "Yes."

The Guardian credits that shift with driving a "planning policy revolution." Proof that when you show up with evidence & optimism, you can change policy!

This is a cartoon about housing.

Greater Brisbane 🏗️🏢 Brisbane's YIMBY network We're Greater Brisbane Urbanists, grassroots YIMBYs working to build a better, fairer city for everyone. Join us and help build abundant housing, better transport and walkable streets.

We just relaunched our website! We've been around for a few years now and thought we should show off all the work our volunteers have been doing. New and improved with news stories, all our newsletters and every bit of advocacy we've done!

Congestion pricing after one year: How life has changed. (Gift Article) How life has changed in the New York area, according to data on traffic, transit and the responses of 600 readers.

Road charging is being overhauled, as electric vehicles erode fuel excise.
A government that learns from overseas experience would introduce congestion charges.
After one year, New York’s charge is a clear success.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

These are 10 of my favourite #UrbanEconomics & #SpatialEconomics articles published in academic journals in 2025, continuing with a tradition started in 2018 (order is alphabetical by first author, no ranking implied):