This guy's the man. He specifically requested they introduce him as a "faceless bureaucrat"

The current 6-day Jeopardy champion works at a housing tax credit agency in New Jersey and for his banter with Ken he just looked directly at the camera and said "New York, California, shame on you, build more housing" and folks when I say heroes walk among us

3Ls: the NYC Department of City Planning is hiring a graduating law student!

It’s a thrilling time to work at DCP. Under Mayor Mamdani and Chair Sherman, New York City is crafting ambitious plans for a more affordable and vibrant city.

Learn more here: cityjobs.nyc.gov/job/agency-att…

"Zoning reform alone will not save the Rust Belt or other depopulated places, but it is nevertheless imperative for encouraging nascent revitalization efforts." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

This paper is an attempt both to elevate zoning reform on the Rust Belt agenda and to reinsert the Rust Belt into the national zoning agenda, offering a policy approach adapted to these cities’ distinct needs.

Comments very appreciated!

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Zoning probably isn’t the number one problem facing post-industrial places. But fixing it can help plant seeds of recovery: facilitating both coordinated revitalization efforts and organic, bottom-up rebuilding. We can hope things will grow from there.

Reforms are underway: without much of a media spotlight, these cities have started to liberalize their zoning and streamline permitting. But there is more to do. And Rust Belt land use politics, though more pro-growth than on the coasts, have their own challenges.

Permitting was often more troublesome than zoning. After decades of cuts and decline, cities (understandably! but now problematically) have buildings departments that are dramatically understaffed, lacking modern technology, and aren't set up for growth.

Outdated zoning exacerbates other challenges of weak markets, too.

It’s harder to secure housing subsidies and they stretch less far.

In Cleveland, mortgage access is limited by widespread non-conformities, limiting homeownership opportunities and keeping down property values.

We find vacant lots that are illegal to rebuild on.

Half of Detroit townhouses required a variance.

Developers who braved the city’s land use approval process once vow "Never again."

And on and on.

Pairing a deep dive on Detroit, including analyses of permitting data and variance decisions, with interviews from across the region, we find restrictions that bind, even in the face of market challenges.

The assumption is: places like Detroit have too many homes. There's room to build.

But we find that zoning codes meaningfully unchanged since the 1950s are holding back revitalization in cities that desperately need it. Projects of all kinds shrink and are scrapped.

New paper with Brian Connolly, forthcoming @washulawreview.bsky.social: “Rezoning the Rust Belt.”

Contemporary debates about zoning treat it as an issue for high-demand places. Reform is about making NYC and SF affordable, or keeping the Sun Belt affordable.

But the Rust Belt needs reform too.

Oh, and the SSRN link!

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

“Zoned Communities”: Signage and the Culture of Property Noah M. Kazis* Abstract At the entrance to many small towns and counties can be found signs proclaiming “Zoning Enforced” or “Zoned Community, Permits Required.” Such signage purports to be providing notice of local land use law. In the language used on these signs and in their visual cues, they appear to be official, instrumental communications, like a traffic or “no trespassing” sign. Moreover, that is what the local officials and residents who advocate for erecting such signs understand them to be. This Essay, however, argues that such signage primarily functions in a subtler, cultural register. Its primary purpose is to create and communicate local norms about the orderly use of property—norms often entirely unrelated to zoning, per se. By cataloguing and interrogating examples of these signs, this Essay shows how communities neither need nor use signage to inform regulated parties about zoning. Instead, they use these signs to shape how residents interpret the landscape around them and how they relate to their neighbors on a wide range of property behaviors. In doing so, it offers a portrait of how law is used as communication and how property and local identity interrelate.

Come for the stories about Woodstock and a whole town of tax cheats, stay for thoughts on legal communication and culture, the relationship of public and private law, and why some people value land use regulation just for its own sake.

Comments welcome! Abstract below.

Sign reading "Damascus Twp. A Zoned Community Permits Required"

New paper!

Have you ever noticed a sign declaring "Zoned Community" as you drive into town? (No? Aren't you the weird one...)

They're a pretty unusual way of communicating about law--and especially regulations governing real property, irrelevant to passersby. What are they *really* for?

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In which Danny hunts for another victim (to read Trobadora Beatrice)

What is the Painters story? Don’t think I know it

The kid blew her shofar for 90 minutes straight. She was just having fun but at moments it felt like a true channeling of the book of Isaiah.

This stretched two full miles, ending at the Big House, game traffic honking support the entire time. Ann Arbor upon Ann Arbor. It was awesome.

I love #Boston #NoKings

It goes without saying by now, but these are forms of discrimination that have been upheld as FHA violations since immediately after the passage of the Act and which have specific textual grounding.

They simply oppose fair housing and don't want to enforce it.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

For Cass yes but I think Ned is right about the broader point. My hypothesis is that energy policy brings in different advocates targets and esp. funders—but isn’t on the local agenda.

I take this to be about the insertion of energy policy into the conversation, but I'm frankly not sure what explains it. Do you have a good theory?

That isn't to say that abundance is purely procedural--that's not right--but the great value of the turn is to let people ID certain political/intellectual/legal habits of the last half century and whether those habits are serving *their own* goals. That's of value for all of us.

And that's baked in. Abundance has a lot to say about means but much less about ends. It's perfectly cogent to want to deploy its toolkit to build more housing and not more junkyards, or for one abundance-type to compromise on labor standards but not enviro laws (or vice versa).

This simply doesn't make any sense. First, it's just descriptively true that "abundance" in reality includes Elizabeth Warren and Scott Weiner (and Niskanen and Mercatus and rightwards from there).

It's a separate axis of politics. You can be left-abundance, center-left-abundance, etc.

It's time for abundance Democrats to embrace cultural moderation The left argues that economic populism lets you ignore voters' cultural concerns. Abundance Democrats know that is wrong, and they should say it.

There has been an effort by all sides to define "abundance" as an inherently centrist project. You see that from supporters like Matt Yglesias and the WelcomeFest centrists, and from left-wing opponents, especially those who self-ID as anti-monopoly.

hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/its-time-f...

Another thought on the politics here too: This is from Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott. It's not "four moderates" bipartisanship, it's the real left and right.

That tells us something important about "abundance" politics.

The effort to reduce administrative burdens in affordable housing programs is very welcome! That's a step further outside my lane, but my understanding is the voucher inspection stuff could be very helpful.

Feels like a blast from a different political universe.