Zillow Reading List, November 6th
Zillow Reading List is a regular roundup of these interesting pieces we come across, with some thoughts about each and how it ties into our existing research and/or has spurred new questions.
At Zillow Research, our days are fully consumed with bringing you the best, most interesting and most actionable real estate research around.
But to that end, we also find time to read a variety of reports, news stories and investigations, on any number of issues, from social justice, to economics, to real estate and sports. We read them for education, for entertainment and out of pure curiosity – and each one helps us discover new questions we want to answer and helps identify new trends worth following.
Zillow Reading List is a regular roundup of these interesting pieces we come across, with some thoughts about each and how it ties into our existing research and/or has spurred new questions. We’ll post these roundups regularly, and of course will continue to strive to publish research that is as enriching, thought-provoking and useful as these pieces have been to us.
Enjoy!
Kai-Mai Cutler in Tech Crunch
It might seem a little strange to suggest that you read an article about a proposition on the ballot in San Francisco after the election is over, but this piece is a tour de force. It exhaustively examines the issue of affordable housing in San Francisco and the role that short-term residential leasing companies like Airbnb play in simultaneously relieving and exacerbating the crisis. Too often, the debate on affordable housing is split into polarized camps who can’t seem to see eye-to-eye on anything. Opponents cast this proposition as the work of the ‘Big Hotel’ lobby, while supporters accused Airbnb of building a billion-dollar business by encouraging residents to flout the law. This article cuts through the divide and provides a comprehensive (read: very long) look at the fight.
Mark Head in Civic Innovations
As Sherlock Holmes put it: “Data! Data! Data! Without clay I cannot make bricks.” At Zillow, we are consistently stymied in our efforts to understand the mind-boggling complexity of land-use regulation. According to this piece, we need more transparency around the zoning process, more data and the creation of uniform standards so we can systematically evaluate how land-use decisions get made and how they might impact the people living in our communities. This sounds like a small technical issue, but it is really much bigger. We face a monumental challenge when it comes to designing modern housing policies, and it is too easy to talk past each other if we don’t have to confront the hard facts yet-to-be-revealed by more comprehensive data collection and dissemination.
Richard Florida in The Atlantic’s City Lab
This study on the impact of gentrification links together several disparate data sources to examine who gentrifies and who gets displaced, and the effects of gentrification on neighborhoods and residents. Surprisingly, the research found that gentrifying areas don’t lose residents faster than other neighborhoods, and those that stay in gentrifying areas enjoy improved living and economic conditions. But those that do move, generally the least advantaged and most vulnerable, are much more likely to end up in neighborhoods with high crime and poor schools. The research suggests that targeted interventions to help support those displaced by gentrification could go a long way to ensuring that the process of revitalizing neighborhoods doesn’t have to weigh on those who can least bear the burden.
Noah Smith in Bloomberg View
There are few technologies out there that have more potential to transform the housing landscape than driverless cars. Many of the seismic shifts in housing history have been driven by changes in transportation, including the development of the car and the highway system, which helped encourage the rapid sprawl during the latter half of the 20th century. This article lays out some of the possibilities when it comes to automated cars. It’s important to note that this technology and its implications are still very much in their infancy, and it is hard to know how all this will play out. For example, rather than kill the public transit system as the author suggests, driverless cars might actually push more people towards public transportation, which is currently stymied by a last-mile problem (especially if we move to a model where most use, but don’t own, individual driverless cars). Either way, pondering a Jetsons-style housing future is a fun way to spend a Friday.
