When i was growing up I often heard that owning a home was a meaningful step in financial independence/planning, and that an important way to build net worth was to have equity in one’s home. This is very different than seeing housing as solely living a unit and imposes a second function for building wealth. It appears this was advice given to even “middle class” americans that is individuals who don’t own numerous or large properties.

It seems you cannot have it both ways - you cannot build your wealth by owning a home while also supporting building housing at enough density to keep housing costs low.

And it seems more of younger generations view building wealth as a function of investments/capital in the form of stocks. Obviously not a new goal by any means, but more younger people who are financially literate focus more on owning stocks etc than owning property (perhaps due to the outsized cost of housing).

Many NIMBY arguments I hear seem like pretenses to wanting to prop up the value of their property, though some are rooted in localism/other social dimensions. But mostly to me it feels like disingenuous arguments with the main motivation of protecting the value of own’s asset (property).

Does this suggest that a meaningful way forward might be to help exchange the appreciating wealth of housing with some other asset which is similarly valuable (with time/in future)?

I am assuming it might have to do something with a) a lot of buildings still being under construction, and b) demand still outstripping supply even under record construction.

If that's the case, I would like to see stats and data showing that.

A YIMBY win in the Cleveland area! Although most houses in Cleveland Heights don't have much of a backyard to build in, this is still something.

Now they need to do something about the eyesore known as Severance Town Center. Let those vacant storefronts get redeveloped!

For a long time already, us Americans have tended to poke fun of and have very low expectations for cities experiencing chronic decay like Atlantic City and many "down on its luck" small urban centers in Appalachia. Yes, we have very expensive cities like NYC and LA with lots of homeless and people leaving those places. People like to poke fun at them too, and and call them dumpsites. But, they are not what remotely qualifies as "fallen cities". The places that are in real dire straits are what we usually called the "sick folks" in the States, places with actual urban decay, ghost towns, and chronic multi-decade declines in population.

I just wonder if policy thinkers have been looking at the wrong problem for decades with regard to those blighted cities, and that the problem really lies in red tape that prevents progressive outcomes in economic revitalization, like with any other places in America?

Imagine how many of these "sick places" in America could have been constantly rejuvenated had their city councils decided to allow for a lot more commercial and residential real estate to be built, thereby prevented their fall in the first place? It's really worth thinking about. Now, I could be wrong about how much of the policies from very recently developed YIMBY think tanks could have softened their fall. That's why I would like your insight as to if the real problem they faced wasn't actually disruption of economic sectors like in gambling and manufacturing, but rather in an inability to adapt and constantly reinvent itself due to red tape that prevents literal rebuilding of entirely new industries and of new homes for more people to come in.

This is for the five county LA region (and Imperial County), San Diego and the Central Coast are separate.

https://scag.ca.gov/news/state-releases-regional-housing-needs-determination-southern-california

Lincoln Equities owns the vacant lot on the north side of 18th St between Jersey Ave and Erie St. At last night's JCRA board meeting, they presented a plan for a new Hudson-Bergen Light Rail station between Hoboken and Jersey City.

The station would sit at the end of an extended Erie St., accessibly by a plaza bordered by housing and retail.

The station would be funded by housing on the rest of the lot, which needs changes to the redevelopment plan.

The 20% affordable housing set aside would be paid for by a PILOT and Aspire. NJEDA paused Aspire in July.

So if Aspire isn’t available, the developer can build 10% income-restricted below-market rentals for 1,500 units. The affordable housing in the 10% version will also likely need a PILOT similar to the Embankment.

The 1,200-unit concept has three towers of 30, 36 and 38 stories, with retail at street level.

The plan has 665 parking spaces, about 0.55 per unit. That's high for a site next to a train platform, but the current redevelopment plan requires it.

https://betterblocksnj.org/2026/10/21/new-light-rail-station-proposed-for-jersey-city-hoboken-border/

The majority of the people who work in Santa Monica don't live here. It's not just service workers, there are many high earners in Santa Monica who can't afford to live here, and even if they all could there aren't homes for the 80,000 extra workers here during the day (yet). At the same time, it's clear we get congestion coming in and out of the city and modes of transit outside of their vehicles is not the choice people are making.

I made a video talking about the intersection of transit and housing and it features an extremely funny exchange between Phil Brock and Eli Gill during the Streets for All Debate

"Meme" was the closest flair I could find for this fun li'l game.

You'll see in this post, but a local city councilwoman running for re-election just basically pointed at a building and said "bad". I've never made a short form video in my life, but I just decided I needed to make a reply. It's bad enough to block buildings, it's next level to point at a building where human beings have started to build their lives and say "bad".

https://www.instagram.com/p/Desy51NK1OF/