A professor in San Diego has concluded that Yelp reviews of ethnic restaurants are contributing to gentrification and displacement. The reviews “contribute to the transformation of urban foodscapes — the physical, symbolic, cultural, lived, and imagined food environments — that have been built by people of color….” And because the reviewers are “primarily young, white,…
An article at MultiHousingNews.com examines Biden’s proposals for addressing the housing shortage, and concludes, In the end, the affordable housing problem is about money. To create housing that costs less, either the cost of construction must be reduced (not likely, given rising costs of land, materials and labor costs); developers must accept reduced profits (which…
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said in 2008. Politicians have long followed that blueprint. The terrorist attacks on 9/11, the Great Recession, and now the pandemic are just the most recent examples. During each crisis government expanded its powers at the expense of individual…
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Texas has a shortage of about 600,000 rental homes that are affordable and available to extremely low-income renters. Across the state, there are just 29 affordable and available housing units for every 100 extremely low-income families. The shortage is slightly more than 170,000 for the Houston-Woodlands-Sugar Land…
An opinion piece in the Santa Fe New Mexican argues that affordable housing really means subsidized housing. The author correctly notes that government housing programs are subsidized by taxpayers, and below market-rate housing (often extorted from developers for permission to build) is subsidized by other home buyers and renters. The author then asks, who is…
After throwing millions of Americans out of work with lockdowns, the government discovered that many of those individuals could not pay their rent. The government responded with a moratorium on evictions. And then, when landlords began to face economic hardship, the government responded with rent assistance. But according to CNBC, only $5 billion of the…
In a court trial, specific rules govern what evidence is admissible. According to Wikipedia The law of evidence, also known as the rules of evidence, encompasses the rules and legal principles that govern the proof of facts in a legal proceeding. The purpose of these principles is to assure a fair and impartial trial. However,…
James R. Taylor, the President of The Heartland Institute, writes that Big Tech is hypocritical for using property rights claims to argue against government intervention in their businesses. Those same companies, he writes, have previously pressured government to intervene in the affairs of other businesses. Certainly, Big Tech is hypocritical in its application of property…
The Biden Administration has announced plans to build or restore 2 million homes to address the housing shortage. This is a very grand plan, and it is receiving praise from many advocates for low-income housing. However, it is more than likely that the number of homes built or restored will fall far short of the…
Last Thursday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill that prohibits large social media companies from blocking content or removing users because of their political views. In a video posted on Facebook, Abbott said, “There is a dangerous movement by some social media companies to silence conservative ideas and values.” Apparently, conservative ideas and values…
In October 2020, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, city council enacted a citywide 100 percent affordable housing overly (AHO). The AHO allows apartment buildings up to four stories in all neighborhoods in the city. However, all units must be permanently affordable to households earning up to 100% of area median income. The standard for affordability is paying…
On September 8, 2021 the Pacific Legal Foundation hosted a webinar titled “Can Free Markets Solve America’s Housing Crisis?” The panel members were Jim Burling from the Pacific Legal Foundation, Judge Glock from The Cicero Institute, Nolan Gray from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and Patrick Tuohey from the Better Cities Project.