

Why Millennials Are Less Urban Than You Think - greedoshotlast
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less-urban-than-you-think/

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jseliger
_Millennials overall, therefore, are not increasingly living in urban
neighborhoods_

I've seen articles that argue this, but I think the bigger issue is that
Millenials _can 't_, because it's too expensive: [http://www.amazon.com/Rent-
Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-
High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO) and municipalities simply won't let anyone
build housing that millenials can't afford.

Except... for exurbs, which don't have existing veto players. Consider:
[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/hou...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/houston-
v-california.html) :

 _Unlike most other big cities in America, Houston has no zoning code, so it
is quick to respond to demand for housing and office space. Last year
authorities in the Houston metropolitan area, with a population of 6.2m,
issued permits to build 64,000 homes. The entire state of California, with a
population of 39m, issued just 83,000._

People move to Houston and exurbs because they can. They don't move to say New
York and San Francisco and Seattle because those cities are so expensive,
regardless of other preferences.

~~~
_delirium
Having lived quite some years in Houston, I see it as just another example of
the problem with NIMBYs and zoning stalling urban development, not an example
of a liberalized, pro-development city, _except_ (like in many places) in the
exurbs. Houston claims to have no zoning, but that is not really true. Whether
you call them "zoning" or invent a euphemism for them, there are...
regulations on type of construction: minimum-setback requirements, minimum
parking requirements, building-to-land ratios, traffic impact rules, etc. that
make it difficult to build high-density housing in most of the city. There are
the usual NIMBY problems as well. Attempting to get even just a light-rail
line built has run into loads of whining and lawsuits from people who don't
want it near them.

Another recent-ish factor is that Texas law and judges' insane attachment to
property rights, to the extent of including various intangible property
rights, has a perhaps counterintuitively anti-development impact. Neighbors
can take new developments to court on the theory that the new development has
damaged some of their own property's value, e.g. by producing increased
traffic or blocking views (some of this originally came out of a very broad
interpretation of "regulatory takings", but has extended to private
litigation). For example, last year, a group of homeowners won $1.2 million
from the developer of a new condo tower:
[http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-
estate/article...](http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-
estate/article/Ashby-ruling-allows-high-rise-to-go-forward-5447064.php)

It is, however, relatively easy to build new single-family homes in the exurbs
~20-30 miles from the city, which is what the vast majority of those 64,000
new-home permits are for. These technically count as "Houston", because Texas
law is very annexation-friendly, so Houston has annexed most of its suburbs
and exurbs out to a radius of ~30 miles. But that's sort-of like counting a
new subdivision being built in Walnut Creek as an example of development
progress in San Francisco.

